Seeing Things

Hidden
Apocalypse, Vision and Totality

MALCOLM BULL

VERSO
London · New Yor1<
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to my parents
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First published by Verso 1999

© Malcolm Bull 1999
All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

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 Co n t e n t s

Acknowledgements ix

Hiddenness

Part One Apocalypse and Totality

2 Apocalypse 47
3 Hegel: From Apocalypse to Totality 100

4 The End: Watts, Kant, Benjamin 136

Part Two Vision and Totality

5 The World in Hiding: Anti-Visual Holism 165

6 Coming into Hiding: The Master-Slave Dialectic 199

7 Living in Hiding: The Multiple Self 256

Epilogue 291

Notes 295

Index 335
 Ack n o wl e d g e m e n t s

I am indebted to many individuals and institutions in Oxford for

their assistance over the years, notably to Wolfson College and St
Edmund Hall (where I have held fellowships), and to John Penney at
Wolfson and Stephen Farthing at the Ruskin School.
Some of the material in the book has appeared in different form
elsewhere; it is reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishers and
of the publishers of the journal if the Anthropological Society if Oiford,
the London Review ifBooks and the New Lift Review. Special thanks are
due to my editors, Mary-Kay Wilmers at the LRB, and Robin
Blackburn and Julian Stallabrass at the NLR.
The book owes much to the encouragement of Perry Anderson,
who also read the entire manuscript. Michael Inwood, Stephen
Mulhall, Kenneth Newport and Marcus Wood read portions of it at
various stages along the way. All offered valuable advice and criticism .
My greatest debts are of a more personal nature: to %, for her
tolerance, and to my parents, for their unfailing support and
generosity.
 1

Hi d d e n n e s s

We hide in play and in fear, but rarely otherwise. Hiding in play,

we may simulate a fear that becomes almost real under the threat of
discovery. Hiding in fear, we are forced to deploy the strategies of
the playground, strategies at once so naive and so imaginative that
they easily acquire the character of a game. Seeking something
hidden involves the same emotional modalities. Unless it is just a
game, we look for what is hidden, anxious about what we might
find - in the small print, under the bed - or else driven by fantasies
about what may be concealed - buried treasure, unexpressed emo­
tion. And yet the two hardly seem distinct. Our anxieties are fuelled
by the play of imagination, our fantasies by the numbing fear that
there may be nothing hidden, that what we already know is all
there is.
With its uncanny mingling of fear and play, the hidden seems to
threaten a regression to childhood, a return to some forgotten world
of unexplored possibility,i)y.completed knowledge and limitless imag­
ination. For most adults, the hidden is usually no more than a
2 S e e i ng Things H i d d en
hypothetical condition marginalised by rationality. But for anyone
who feels that there are things that they have not fully grasped, that
there is something held back, that everything is not necessarily as it
appears to be, this will never be enough.And if we want to under­
stand hiddenness, we must allow ourselves enough uncertainty and
curiosity to take seriously the kind of questions that must be asked of
this disquieting and fantastic condition.
Little has been written about the phenomenon of hiddenness, but
in what follows I will use some of the literary and philosophical
texts that address the issue to try to develop tentative answers to
some very basic questions: What is hidden? When is it hidden? How
is it hidden? Can it always be discovered?
I will begin with a fairy story.
Hiddenness and Truth
The English poet for whom hiddenness is most important is prob­
ably Spenser. Indeed, the Proem to the first book of The Faerie Qgeene
suggests that for him the idea of hiddenness was interwoven with
that of his poetic vocation. Although Spenser announces that he, like
Ariosto, will "sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds", he empha­
sises that this is to be a work of rediscovery and not of mere
narration.The praise of his subjects has "slept in silence long"; he
will awaken it by proclaiming their voiceless renown. Yet, as he
acknowledges, he is not the obvious man for the job. Referring to
The Shepheardes Calender, Spenser describes himself as "the man,
whose Muse whilome did maske, I As time her taught, in lowly
Shepheards weeds".' He too has been hidden, but he will unmask
himself in the revelation that is his poem.All he needs is the aid of
Clio, the Muse of History. Calling upon her to "Lay forth out of
Hidd e n n e s s 3
thine everlasting scryne I The antique rolles, which there lye hidden
still", 2 Spenser completes the occult triangle that defines his work:
the hidden text, the disguised narrator, the forgotten subjects; all
will simultaneously be uncovered.
Within the first book, the theme of hiddenness and revelation
defines both protagonists and plot. The focus of this concern is Una,
or Truth.At the start of the book she is described in terms of the
multiple layers with which she conceals herself. She is whiter than
the Ass she rides, "... but the same did hide I Under a vele, that
wimpled was full low, I And over all a black stole she did throw,";
her feelings too are obscured, " ...in heart some hidden care she
had".3 At the end, however, Una is unveiled and reveals herself to be
SoJaire andfresh, asfreshestjlowre in May;
For she had layd her mournifull stole aside,
And widow-like sad wimple throwne away,
Wherewith her heavenly beautie she did hide. 4
The plot of Book One is therefore framed by the hiddenness and
unhiddenness of Truth, and this theme can be seen as the structur­
ing principle of the whole.It is developed first in microcosm in the
battle with Error.
Una has only just been introduced when she and the Redcrosse
Knight are forced further into hiding. Surprised by a cloudburst,
"this fair couple eke to shroud themselves were fain" and shelter in
"A shadie grove ...that heavens light did hide".5 From there, Una
and the Redcrosse Knight wander deeper into the darkness of the
forest until they reach Error's den. But although Error is located
where Truth is most concealed, Error is not clearly revealed.On the
contrary, as Una warns the Redcrosse Knight, "Oft fire is without
smoke, I And perill without show".Where Truth is hidden so too
4 Seeing T hi n g s Hid den Hidden n e s s 5

is Error: the knight must be wary not just of danger, but of "The espoused to Duessa, all can be revealed. As Una's father says, "Let
danger hid".6 nought be hid ... that ought to be exprest".13 It is then Truth her­
Although Redcrosse defeats Error without much difficulty, the
self who unmasks Archimago
episode serves as an unheeded warning of what is to come. No
sooner have Una and Redcrosse left the wood and resumed their
. . . thisfalsefootman, clokt with simplenesse,
journey than they meet Archimago, the sorcerer, who is their oppo­
VVhom ifye pleasefor to discover plaine,
nent for the rest of the story.This seemingly pious old man "lives in
Ye shall him Archimagofind, 1 gheese,
hidden cell"7 and persuades Una and the Redcrosse Knight to pass
Thefalsest man alive . . 14
.

the night with him there. Soon Truth is "drownd in deadly sleepe", 8
and falsehood is able to disguise itself as truth. Archimago conjures
When Truth was hidden Error and Falsehood were hidden too, but
up two sprites - "the falsest twoo, I And fittest for to forge true­
Truth unveiled reveals Error and Falsehood for what they are.
seeming lyes"9 - and "with charmes and hidden artes" makes one of
Spenser's fairy tale explores the relationship between hidden­
them into the likeness of Una. 10 The Redcrosse Knight is then awak­
ness, truth and falsehood. The narrative revolves around the
ened from an erotic dream to find this false Una trying to seduce
hiddenness and unveiling of truth and contrasts the repeated occa­
him:
sions on which, with truth hidden, falsehood too is hidden and so
appears as truth, with the final denouement in which truth and
He started up, as seeming to mistrust falsehood are both revealed for what they are. This plot is not, of
Some secret ill, or hiddenfoe I![ his: course, the subject of Book One of the Faerie Qyeene, but it provides
Loe there bifore hisface his lady is, the framework for the allegory, and it is assumed that the reader will
Under blake stole hyding her bayted hooke. 11
unquestioningly recognise and accept the plausibility of its structure.
But why is Spenser able to make this assumption? Is this just one of
Redcrosse repulses her advances, but this is just the first of many
many possible accounts of the relationship of hiddenness to truth and
occasions in which he and Una are to be deceived. Archimago will
falsehood, or is its structure in some way constrained by the limita­
soon appear to Una in the form of the Redcrosse Knight, and
tions on the way in which these concepts can be combined? Could
Redcrosse will himself be repeatedly tricked by Duessa, who, like
Spenser have written a poem about the hiddenness of falsehood in
Archimago, personifies falsehood ("I that do seeme not I, Duessa which truth was hidden when falsehood was revealed and falsehood
am").12
hidden when truth revealed?
All these deceptions will be unmasked only when, at the end of
It is difficult to imagine how such a poem would work, not just
the book, Truth is herself unveiled. Then, when Archimago (dis­
because it would upset our narrative expectations but because it
guised as a messenger) attempts to prevent the betrothal of Una and
would involve conceptual difficulties.In certain situations one truth
the Redcrosse Knight on the grounds that the Redcrosse is already
may hide another, just as one object may conceal another, but how
6 Se e i ng Things H id d e n
exactly could the revelation of truth disguise what is false?
Commonplace facts do not conceal their non-existent alternatives:
if the cat is sitting on the mat, there is no sense in which this cat
hides a non-existent one sitting in the window. Similarly, true state­
ments about the world can hardly be said to conceal or disguise
their mistaken alternatives, still less the truth-value of those alter­
natives: no truth of itself makes a falsehood appear true. If we were
to discover the true identity of Jack the Ripper other putative iden­
tifications would be, by that very discovery, shown to be false. And
although it might then be fair to claim that the true theory had seen
off its rivals or driven them underground, it simply would not make
sense to speak of the true theory concealing or disguising the others.
By the same measure, it is hard to conceive of any situation in which
truth would be hidden by the revelation of falsehood for what it was.
If I determine that the cat is not sitting in the window, the cat on the
mat is not thereby automatically revealed to me, but it is no more
hidden than before. In most cases the discovery of falsehoods will
gradually result in the uncovering of truth, as the truth emerges
through the process of elimination (the sequential revelation of false­
hoods). It is, of course, conceivable that the discovery of falsehood
might distract from some adjacent truth, just as the revelation of
truth might lead one to give the benefit of the doubt to some nearby
falsehood. But such innocence or guilt by association is not a conse­
quence of the discoveries themselves, only of a mind running on
beyond what can legitimately be inferred.
Spenser's plot may have been the only one available to him in so
far as truth or falsehood revealed will always eventually reveal the
other, but was it also necessary for him to suggest that they are usu­
ally hidden together? And if so, does the hiding of falsehood involve
the hiding of truth, the hiding of truth the hiding of falsehood, or
both? If the former, it suggests that in Spenser's allegory we can read
H id d e n n e s s 7
Falsehood's impersonation of Truth as the hiding of Truth herself. If
so, we should be able to rearrange the narrative in these terms, and
so produce an alternative but equivalent version of Spenser's alle­
gory which begins with Falsehood's gradual perfection of the
appearance of Truth.
To answer this question it helps to change the terms in which it is
put. If we accept that when truth is hidden, what is really true
appears to be false, and when falsehood is hidden, what is really
false appears to be true, the relationships appear symmetrical, and
yet the vocabulary used to describe them is different. While truth
appearing as falsehood is an example of falsehood hiding the truth or
of truth being concealed (or concealing itself ), when falsehood
appears as truth, the situation is usually described not as falsehood
being hidden by (or hiding itself in) truth, but as falsehood pre­
tending to be truth. If the pattern were symmetrical we would
speak as easily of the truth pretending to be false as we do of the hid­
denness of truth, but we do not. Does this linguistic difference
reveal or disguise some asymmetry in the relationship?
One possible answer to this question is provided by Austin's
analysis of pretending.Responding to the idea that pretending to be
something (or someone) necessarily involves not really being what
you pretend to be, Austin argues that the essential relation in pre­
tence is not between the pretence and the reality to which the
pretence approximates, but that between the pretence and some
other reality which the pretence disguises. Thus, according to
Austin, successful pretence almost invariably involves hiddenness,
and although in English (unlike Latin) it is not necessary to refer to
that which the pretender is hiding, "The essence of the situation in
pretending . . . is that my public behaviour is meant to disguise
some reality." 15 In other words, "To be pretending ... I must be
trying to make others believe, or to give them the impression, by
 Hidd e n n e s s 9
8 S e e i n g T h i n g s Hidde n

that pretending consists in, or causes hiddenness, or just that pre­

means of a current personal performance in their presence ...that
tence presupposes hiddenness? Pretending not-to-be may be
I am (really, only, &c.) abc, in order to disguise the fact that I am
equivalent to hiding, but pretending itself seems to involve hiding
really xyz."16
Put this way, Austin might be taken as saying that hiding is merely without actually causing something to be hidden. For example, pre­
tending to be well is not quite the same as disguising the fact that you
the purpose of pretence. But he clearly means more than this.
Imitation for the sake of deception does not of itself constitute pre­ are sick. Not only can you disguise your sickness without pretend­

tence. So, to use one of Austin's examples, if, when surprised in the ing to be healthy, but pretending to be healthy does not necessarily
hide your true condition, although, if the pretence is to be more
course of a nocturnal raid on your goats, I merely snarl and bound
away into the bush, I cannot be said to be pretending to be a panther than a feeble imitation of well-being, it does require your illness to

because "for it to be a clear case of pretending I, my human person, be concealed. Similarly, in the examples Austin discusses, pretend­
17
must remain on the scene to be hidden under the pretence". On the ing does not effect the hiding of truth but presupposes its

other hand, ifl "slink about the kraal with menacing grunts", it will hiddenness. The burglar pretending to clean windows (and actually

be a clear case of pretending: I will be acting in such a way as to hide cleaning them in the process) does not hide the fact that he is noting

my humanity beneath a simulated panterity. the valuables inside the house by cleaning the windows. The fact that

According to Austin, "in a pretence ...there is at least something he is noting the valuables is already disguised, and if he were noting

that has to be hidden", 18 and the pretence must involve a serious them openly rather than surreptitiously, he would not be pretending

attempt to hide it. (Although I may imagine that I am a panther to clean the windows at all, but rather noting the valuables and
while cycling to work, I am hardly in a position to pretend to be cleaning the windows. Similarly, when Austin refers to someone

one.) So even on occasions in which the pretence does not conceal hiding their humanity beneath a simulated panterity, he is assuming

a direct negation of what appears to be the case, some other truth is that their humanity is already hidden by the darkness of the night.In

hidden.However, what is pretended is often simply the negation of broad daylight, slinking around grunting is no more pretending to be

what is true. And in such circumstances, what appears to be true is a panther (as opposed to imitating a panther) than (to use another of

actually false, and what is actually true is hidden by the very act of Austin's examples) sleeping at a party is pretending to be a hyena

pretending that what is not true is the truth. Austin's analysis sug­ (even a sleeping one).

gests that although we use "pretending" to describe the appearance What this seems to suggest is that rather than pretending consist­

of something false as true and ''hiding" to describe the appearance of ing in or causing hiddenness, we can make no sense of pretence

something true as false, there is no real distinction between the two without assuming that the truth is already hidden. In other words, the

situations.Pretending always involves hiding, not the hiding of false­ hiddenness of falsehood does not hide the truth, it fills the void left

hood but the hiding of truth. by the hiddenness of truth. Austin himself notes that it is "easy to pre­

However, Austin is rather unclear on the question of what exactly tend to be sitting on a certain chair when it is half concealed behind

he means when he says that pretending involves hiding. Does he mean a desk, less easy if it is in full view", 19 but the full force of the
10 Seei ng Th i n g s Hid den
observation is lost. Unless the truth is hidden, pretending is not just
difficult but impossible. If you are in full view of numerous
observers, you cannot pretend to sit in your favourite chair without
actually doing so, in which case you are not pretending to sit in it but
actually sitting in it.When analysed, the notion of hiding a falsehood
proves impossible to use without invoking the hiddenness of truth,
and even then falsehood does not hide the truth; the truth has first to
be hidden before any of the practices of pretence become possible.
Spenser's insistence upon wrapping Truth in multiple layers of obscu­
rity was, it transpires, the only way of giving the multiple deceptions
that follow any allegorical plausibility.The mythical affinity of truth
and hiddenness seems to have some foundation: not because truth is
always hidden, but because only the truth can be hidden.
The Varieties of Hiddenness
Although what is hidden may always be the same, there may be
more than one way to hide it. Hiddenness has its varieties, and for
mountain walkers these variations seem to present themselves as a
natural topic for meditation. In a landscape that seems to promise
undistorted access to a truth free from deception the difficulty of
gaining a complete and unchanging perspective only becomes more
apparent.It comes as no surprise to find that Wordsworth, seeking
the truth in the solitude of the mountains, makes hiddenness a con­
stant refrain, and in the fifth book of The Excursion offers a sustained
meditation on its varieties. The book begins with Wordsworth's
rhetorical farewell to the Solitary's cottage, which is
To the still iriflux if the morning light
Open, and day's pure cheeifulness, but veiled
H idde n n e s s 11
From human observation, as ifyet
Primevalforests wrapped thee round with dark
Impenetrable shade. 20
. .
This habitation, whose position in a seemingly wooded valley recalls
Archimago's hermitage, is nevertheless no "hidden cell" but a place
open to the light of day, and as such embodies the poet's stated ideal
of a life "Sheltered, but not to social duties lost, I Secluded, but not
buried."2 1 But the imagined space of the ideal life is soon inverted
when the Solitary offers another perspective on the previous day's
discourse.Standing in the churchyard, he juxtaposes the secrecy of
the open life with the open secrets of death by imagining what it
would be like
. . . if this mute earth
Of what it holds could speak, and evezy grave
Were as a volume, shut, yet capable
Ofyielding its contents to o/e and ear. 22
Where the cottage is "Open ...but veiled I From human observa­
tion", the dead are imagined as buried but communicative, like a
book that is shut and yet still legible.
The difference between the two is revealing. Although the view
of the cottage is not restricted by any physical obstacle, it appears to
the viewer as though it were: there is nothing to cast a shadow,
yet the cottage still appears to be in the shade. In contrast, in the
churchyard there is something tangible blocking the view; the dead
are removed from sight because they are physically buried under the
ground. But just as the covers of a book conceal its contents yet
recall its content to someone who has previously read it, so the
silent earth somehow echoes with the voices of the dead. It is as
 Hid den nes s 13
12 Seeing Thi ngs H idde n

exemplify two of the four possible modes of perceptual experience

though the dead are revealed not despite but because of their con­
(and non-experience) shown in the matrix below.
cealment. As the Pastor later remarks, "they whom death has hidden
from our sight I Are worthiest of the mind's regard", for they have
made the transition "that shows I The very Soul, revealed as she imperceptible perceptible

departs.'123 insensible unexperienced concealed

Wordsworth's implied opposition between the cottage and the
grave seems to be generated by the separation of sensation from sensible disguised experienced

perception. W hereas the cottage is sensible but unperceived, the

dead are perceived but not sensed. In order to make use of this As far as perceptual experience is concerned, something neither

implied distinction, it is helpful to clarify the terms, not least sensible nor perceptible is simply unexperienced, while something

because the words involved are sometimes used in different ways. both sensible and perceptible is clearly an object of perceptual exper­

Sensation is here used to refer to raw experience without or prior ience. Something sensible but imperceptible might be thought of as

to any epistemic or cognitive component. The cottage is sensible in being disguised, i.e. an object of sensory experience that eludes per­

that it is a possible object of visual experience, and the dead are ception because it appears absent or other than it is, while something

insensible precisely because, having departed the sensible world perceptible but insensible might be thought of as concealed, still

and become immortal souls, they are no longer objects of sensory present but covered up so that it is not accessible to the senses at all.24

experience. In contrast, perception is here used to refer to a dis­ If we consider perception to be a discriminatory cognitive event,

criminatory cognitive experience with an epistemic content, an then many of our encounters with hiddenness are liable to be of this

experience that is at least logically distinct from that of sensation. kind. But even then perception is not the only level at which we may

The dead are perceptible in that through memory, intuition, or experience hiddennness, for it also possible to perceive something

some form of extra-sensory perception they remain objects of without recognising what it is that you are perceiving.Some of the

knowledge despite their removal from the realm of the sensible. more commonplace examples of hiding are best articulated in these

But the cottage is veiled, not because it is beyond the range of sen­ terms. However, the modalities of hiddenness created by the dis­

sory experience, but because it cannot be perceived; in other junction between perception and recognition are essentially the

words, whatever sensory experiences it might give rise to in an same as those formed by the disjunction of sensation and perception.

observer surveying the valley, that observer would never move

from experiencing those sensations to the experience of looking at unrecognisable recognisable

a cottage. imperceptible unknown concealed

Hiddenness arises in cases where we sense something but do not
perceive it, or when we perceive something but cannot sense it. In perceptible disguised known

the cases discussed above, the cottage and the grave would seem to
14 S e e ing Things Hid d e n
It is this form of the distinction between concealment and dis­
guise that is the key to Poe's famous story "The Purloined Letter",
which relies for its effect on a simple trick designed to make the
reader discount one of the two forms of hiddenness. Poe's descrip­
tion of the way in which the letter's recipient successfully hides the
letter from the "exalted personage from whom especially it was her
wish to conceal it" neatly illustrates this distinction between con­
cealment and disguise:
After a hurried and vain endeavour to thrust it in a drawer, she
was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. The
address, however, was uppermost, and, the contents thus
unexposed, the letter escaped notice. 25
But not by everyone, for the thief, the Minister D-, although he
cannot physically see anything concealed from the "exalted person­
age", nevertheless sees through the disguise: "His lynx eye
immediately perceives the paper, recognises the handwriting of the
address, observes the confusion of the personage addressed, and
fathoms her secret."26
Given that the letter is first hidden by its recipient not through
being imperceptible, but through being unrecognisable, why does
the reader not immediately guess that the letter is subsequently
hidden by the thief in the same way? The answer is that Poe first
establishes that the thief has hidden the letter through an analysis that
deploys the logic of concealment to the exclusion of disguise. As
G-, the Prefect of Police, explains, the stolen letter occupies a
definable space within known boundaries: it was stolen from under
the eyes of its recipient, and if it passed out of the thief's possession,
the results would be instantly sensible. 27 The letter is recognisably
absent in that it was known before it disappeared and would quickly
Hid d enne s s 15
become known if it reappeared, so we naturally and correctly con­
clude that the letter is currently being concealed by the thief.
It would seem to follow from the fact that D- is concealing the
letter and that (as the police also deduce) the letter is in his house,
that the letter is concealed in his house. So, having successfully
demonstrated that the letter occupies a definable but concealed
space, G- tries to deploy the same logic in the search of D-'s
house. The police therefore start with the furniture, looking for
secret drawers that occupy a measurable but invisible space within a
cabinet: as G- explains, "There is a certain amount of bulk - of
space -to be accounted for in every cabinet. ... The fiftieth part of
a line could not escape us."28 But despite such efforts nothing is
found.
As Poe's detective, Dupin, observes, the complete failure of the
search for the concealed letter showed that the police "in searching
for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would
have hidden it". 29 Their mistake, as Dupin's own investigations soon
confirm, was to look for a letter that had been concealed rather than
disguised. The letter had been in front of the police all the term, the
sole letter in a card-rack hanging from the mantelpiece, but "the
letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, redirected and
resealed". 3 0 Because the letter constituted a recognisable absence
within the thief's plot, the police also sought to recognise it as an
absence in his house, and thus completely failed to register its pres­
ence. The fact that the letter was now turned inside out was enough
for them to misidentify it as just a letter, rather than as the hidden
letter. Like a child repeatedly trying to pull apart the inner of two
Russian dolls, the Prefect of Police cannot imagine that something
may be twice hidden but only once concealed.
The degree to which we think of hiddenness as being at a cogni­
tive rather than an experiential level is liable to depend partly on our
16 S e e ing T h i ng s H i d d e n
understanding of perception itself (if we suppose perception to
involve the relay rather than the discrimination of sensory informa­
tion, then experiences of hiddenness are more likely to be
interpreted in cognitive terms) and partly on the kind of thing we
are dealing with. W hen we encounter things in the world as hidden,
then their hiddenness is liable to be an experiential problem, but, if
having ideas before the mind is like having a percept, our inability to
grasp ideas or recognise the truth is liable to be primarily an expe­
rience of cognitive hiddenness. Nevertheless, the two modes of
hiding are formed in the same way at both levels and, in most cases,
there is no need to specify at which level concealment or disguise is
operative.Not only is it notoriously difficult to determine the pre­
cise point at which the experiential turns into the cognitive, but the
vocabulary of hiding makes no distinction between purely experi­
ential and purely cognitive hiddenness, for hiddenness always
involves both experience and cognition: concealment involves a lack
of experience to match the corresponding cognition, while disguise
involves a failure of cognition to match up to experience.The phe­
nomenon of hiddenness is created by an imbalance between the
experiential and the cognitive somewhere on the continuum
between the barely experienced and the fully cognised.
Hidden Kn owledge
Hide and Seek is not a game you can play successfully by yourself,
but it might seem that both activities could at least be pursued sep­
arately. However, this is not the case: you can seek without there
being anyone to hide from you (although you may not find very
much), but you cannot hide without there being someone to look
for you. Hiding is only possible relative to a potential observer. If
Hiddenness 17
you require persuasion on this point, conduct an experiment. Are
you hiding at the moment? If not, then hide. It is easy enough in the
library, but if you are sitting alone in your study, what can you do?
You can always get under the desk, but getting under a desk is not
quite the same as hiding under a desk. If you are expecting an unwel­
come visitor and get under the desk you are certainly trying to hide,
but if no one comes in will you then be hidden under the desk, or
just in an awkward position? Similarly, if you put on a wig in the pri­
vacy of your bathroom are you then disguised, or can you only be
said to be disguised (as opposed to wearing a wig) when you appear
in front of people who might potentially recognise you? If you went
somewhere where it was certain that nobody could recognise you,
could you disguise yourself at all?
Hiding seems to involve someone else's potential experience
and knowledge, and not just their logically possible knowledge, but
knowledge that is unrealised only as a result of some contingency.
On this basis, it is possible to differentiate the hidden from the
unknown or unexperienced. The totally unknown or unexperi­
enced, something of which nobody has had the slightest inkling
either sensually, perceptually or cognitively, is just that: unknown
and unexperienced. It is not just redundant to say that before its dis­
covery the land mass of Antarctica was hidden from human
observers, it is misleading as well, for there is simply no answer to
natural questions like "Who precisely was it hidden from?" (people
looking south?), "How was it hidden?" and so on. A land mass
extending further than the eye can see might be said to be hidden
from view because it is continuous and no end is in sight, but it
makes no sense to say that beyond the limits of the known world
there is a hidden world unless the known world gives us some indi­
cation of what is beyond it. Something that is known to no one may
need to be at least partially experienced in order to be hidden, but
 18 Se eing Th i ng s H id d e n
what about something that is known to one person or persons yet
unknown to others? It seems clear that something known to one
person can be hidden by her from other people, and hidden in such
a way that it is not merely disguised or concealed from others but
totally unknown and unexperienced by them. So although some­
thing hidden in this way must be potentially accessible to the
observer(s) from whom it is hidden, it may nevertheless be com­
pletely unexperienced by them. But what about something hidden
without human agency, something which, without anyone's having
attempted to restrict people's knowledge, is nevertheless experi­
enced and known to some but not to others? Obviously something
cannot be said to be hidden from someone who does not experience
it unless they are in a position to do so. (What I know is almost
all unknown to Chinese farmers and what they know is almost all
unknown to me, but these things are not hidden. ) If two competent
observers are both in an equally good position to apprehend some­
thing, but it is experienced or known to one and not the other,
then it is natural to say that what is unknown or unexperienced is
hidden from the person who does not know it. However, this situ­
ation is unusual for it must be distinguished from the more
commonplace cases of something being concealed from one person
but not from another, and of something being disguised from one
person but not another.
If something hidden must be both potentially knowable and at
least partially experienced by someone, this suggests that hidden-
/ ness is not a quality independent of knowledge, but rather a function
of it. If everything were fully known to everyone nothing would
be hidden, and if no one knew anything whatsoever nothing would be
hidden either, just unknown. Hiddenness therefore presupposes not
just incomplete knowledge but incompleted knowledge, knowledge
that is less full than it might be, perhaps than it ought to be. It
Hidd e n n e s s 19
involves the relationship between what an observer could know and
what she does know, and it assumes that the observer knows less than
she might. However, this may not be an altogether satisfactory defi­
nition for it fails to convey the sense that hidden knowledge is not just
unrealised knowledge but frustrated knowledge.
Ryle separated perception verbs into those which describe tasks
and those which describe related achievements, such as "looking
and seeing", "listening and hearing". 3 1 One way of thinking about
hiddenness might be to see it as an aberrant example of just such a
pair. Although it is possible to find without seeking, finding is usu­
ally not an activity distinct from seeking but the successful outcome
of seeking, just as hearing represents the successful outcome of lis­
tening. Not all tasks are successful - "shooting and missing"
represents a similar pair but describes an action and a corresponding
lack of achievement. But there are some achievement words for
which there is no corresponding task because their achievement is
the non-achievement of someone else's task. Hiding, like eluding
and deceiving, is an achievement word relative to someone else's
seeking (if you are eventually found you are no longer hidden, but
you are hiding for as long as you are not found; when caught you are
no longer eluding your pursuers, but you are until you are caught).
However, hiding, unlike eluding, is not simply the non-achievement
of someone else's seeking. Essential to the concept of hiding is the
idea that someone's quest was not merely unsuccessful but frus­
trated in the sense that its defeat is inextricably linked to the
proximity of achievement. If something is hidden, then its know­
ability is restricted so that it is knowable only to specific individuals
or so that it is known only in specific respects. Its degree of hidden­
ness is therefore the difference between how it might be known
and how it is known. If something is hidden from you, it is not
because truth has eluded you and is unattainable, but because truth
20 Se e i n g T h i n g s Hidd e n H i d d e nn e s s 21

i s flirting with you, simultaneously offering and withholding, or confidently expected to be able to perceive individual faces and to
keeping herself from you while giving herself to others in your recognise one familiar countenance amongst them. Just as recognising
presence. that they were there (on the basis of other information) and sensing
Expressed in terms of the model of hiddenness given above, we them physically but not actually perceiving them would not amount to
might say that hiddenness involves not just any imbalance between the seeing them in the crowd, so sensing them without recognising
experiential and the cognitive, but an imbalance at a point where that they were there would not amount to an experience of their
parity might be expected. Articulating hiddenness in terms of the
hiddenness.
disjunctions between sensing and perceiving, and perceiving and
recognising, seems appropriate precisely because perception is the
achievement we might naturally expect from sensing, and recognition Necessary Hiddenness
is the achievement we might expect from perceiving. But where we
pull the activity and the achievement further apart we might be more As the story of the purloined letter shows, concealment and dis­
wary of saying that an imbalance really amounted to hiddenness. This guise are usually independent of one another. Something may
is a subtle point, for it might be supposed that all the relationships on
be disguised without being concealed, and concealed without being -
the continuum from experience to cognition were transitive. Most disguised. When hiddenness is layered, like the proverbial "mystery
forms of perceptual knowledge would suggest that they were, but wrapped in an enigma", the form hiddenness takes at one level need not
not only are there some percepts (e.g. imaginary forms) for which we
determine that above or below. A mask may conceal a disguise, a dis­
do not have corresponding sensations and some (e.g. unfamiliar
guise the faceless mask beneath. But there are also circumstances in
objects) which we cannot recognise; even where transitivity might be
which disguise and concealment seem to imply one another. To under­
assumed we do not necessarily expect it . In sensing things we do not
stand how this might work, it is worth considering Jastrow's famous
recognise and recognising things we do not sense we do not have
duck-rabbit.
quite the same feeling of frustration, for we are prepared to allow that
on the long journey from pure sensation to recognition things may go
astray. For example, if someone is "hidden" in a distant crowd of
people, but neither concealed from view by other bodies nor made to
appear other than they would normally be, then we might want to say
that they are unnoticed rather than hidden. Even if they were sensible,
not being able to recognise them right away would not suggest that
they had been hidden in the time before they were spotted, and even
Stanley Cavell's account of seeing the duck-rabbit either in its
if they were never noticed, that would be all there was to it. We duck-aspect or in its rabbit-aspect neatly illustrates the way in which
would subsequently ask, "Where were you hidden?" only if we
one aspect disguises the other:
22 Se e i ng T h i ngs H i d d e n
We may say that the rabbit-aspect is hidden from us when we
fail to see it. But what hides it is then obviously not the picture
(that reveals it), but our (prior) way of taking it, namely in its
duck-aspect. What hides one aspect is another aspect, some­
thing at the same level. 32
Seeing the duck-rabbit as a duck hides the rabbit not because the
rabbit becomes insensible - in seeing the duck you are necessarily
sensing all that is to be sensed of the rabbit - but because the rabbit
becomes imperceptible.
When we see (i.e. sense and perceive) the duck, the rabbit is dis­
guised, and when we see the rabbit the duck is disguised. It is also
possible to look at the drawing without seeing a duck or a rabbit, in
which case the duck or rabbit is disguised, not by the other but by
the drawing itself. The one thing we do not seem to be able to do is
sense and perceive the duck and the rabbit at the same time. Being
familiar with trick drawings of this type, we may not just recognise
but even perceive the drawing as a duck-rabbit drawing, although
we are not then seeing a duck and a rabbit, only a drawing of the par­
ticular kind that disguises a duck or a rabbit. Throughout these
transformations, our sensation of the drawing itself remains con­
stant. Indeed, we can hold the drawing in front of our eyes and
oscillate between the various possibilities more or less at will with­
out ceasing to look at the drawing or to sense it in the same way. We
may not be able to see everything at once, but there is no one thing
we perceive that we cannot also sense, so although more than one
thing is disguised in the drawing none of them is concealed.
However, it may be argued that we can recognise something
concealed in the drawing in a way that cannot be perceived, namely
a duck and (i.e. plus) a rabbit. This is not just a matter of being able
to specify which two animals the duck-rabbit inscription represents,
H i d d e nne s s 23
which is something we could d o without being able to perceive
either of them and (as I have argued above) without there being
anything hidden at the cognitive level. Recognising a duck and
a rabbit means looking at the drawing and recognising the duck or
rabbit not just as a duck or rabbit but as a duck and a rabbit. How
could this happen? If we can alternately recognise the rabbit and the
duck and we are habituated to the switch, we are liable to find that
recognising the duck or rabbit may be a less exclusive experience
than we first supposed. Especially if viewed in circumstances sug­
gestive of its simultaneous duality, noticing a duck or a rabbit in a
duck-rabbit drawing may no longer be quite the same as noticing
a duck in a duck-drawing or a rabbit in a rabbit-drawing. Without in
any sense starting to perceive some sort of hybrid species or getting
double vision, you may nevertheless recognise something distinctly
rabbity about the duck, something duck-like about the rabbit. Asked
to identify the drawing you may perceive one or the other but still
unhesitatingly and truthfully say, "That is a duck and a rabbit."
If this seems difficult to imagine, think about someone you know
better than you do the duck-rabbit drawing, a friend or relative per­
haps, and consider the phrase "she seems to be her old self ". Its use
presupposes that the person in question has changed, and changed to
such an extent that you can distinguish her "old self " from her cur­
rent way of being. However, in recognising the "old self", you are
not implying that your acquaintance has switched personalities and
that her "new self" has become temporally imperceptible, still
less that she now physically resembles the person that she once was
(physically, she may not have changed); you are simply recognising
the presence of something once known but subsequently obscured,
something which, as your comment implicitly acknowledges, is not
now there to be perceived, but can still be recognised in addition to
the "new self" by someone who knows what they are looking for.
24 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
The principle is the same with the duck-rabbit, except that the
timespan involved is so contracted as to be virtually instantaneous.
Perceptually switching from duck to rabbit may lead us to feel at a
cognitive level that the rabbit does not go away when we see the
duck, and that when seeing the duck we can still recognise the rabbit
that we were seeing a moment before. But, if so, where is it?
Whatever else it may be, the duck-rabbit is not a drawing of a duck
and a rabbit. The rabbit we recognise is not therefore something we
perceive when we are perceiving the duck. Rather it is recognised in
the duck, which we now see not as an independent duck but as the
only perceived manifestation of a duck and rabbit. So when we say that
the duck takes on something of the rabbit aspect that was previously
noticed, we do not mean that it starts to look like a rabbit, just that we
are not recognising it as a duck but as a duck and concealed rabbit.
The argument seems to have taken a paradoxical turn. Have
we not just stated that when the duck-rabbit is perceived as a
duck we can still sense a rabbit even though we do not perceive it?
So if we then recognise a duck and a concealed rabbit, have we sud­
denly stopped sensing what is still in front of our eyes? No, but we
are not sensing a duck-and-rabbit - just a duck-or-rabbit - and if in
perceiving a duck or a rabbit we recognise a duck and a rabbit,
unless something magically appears before our eyes we have started
to recognise something that is partly imperceptible and insensible as
well.The intriguing thing about the duck-rabbit is that we cannot
see both the duck and the rabbit at the same time and in the same
way.At an experiential level we can sense both at the same time and
in such a way that one is perceptible and the other disguis�d, and at
a cognitive level we can recognise both at the same time in such a
way that one is perceptible and the other is concealed. But
whichever way we move on the continuum of experience and cog­
nition something is always hidden.
H i d d e nn e s s 25
This pattern o f inescapable hiddenness i s more commonly
encountered in words than drawings. Take a word with at least two
unconnected meanings, like "port". If in context it means the place
where ships dock, then even though the inscription itself is right in
front of you it will not even suggest a fortified wine, and nothing of
its other meaning(s) will be perceived. However, provided that you
are conversant with both meanings of the word, there is no reason
why, in an appropriate context, you should not alternate between
the two, as in Pope's couplet:
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port. 33
All puns depend on precisely this possibility. Unless both meanings
can be perceived the pun just will not work. If we have to work out
one of the meanings (as we might in the case of a multilingual pun
employing a language with which we are not entirely familiar) we
would not have got the pun, and we still would not get it, even if
we then recognised, but could not perceive, both meanings.
However, unless both can be recognised simultaneously, the pun
will not work either. If the word "port" entirely lost its maritime
aspect on acquiring its alcoholic aspect we would be as unimpressed
as we would be if the couplet ended with the unambiguous " ... but
now sleeps in wine". If we read Pope's couplet successfully we do
not ask which sort of port is meant, or go back and forth between
two alternative perceptions; we recognise both meanings at the
same time. But if both meanings are recognised simultaneously,
how does the pun differ from a couplet ending " ... but now sleeps
in harbour and fortified wine" or ". . . but now sleeps in port and
port"? The meaning may be the same but there is only one word to
express it, one word that does not mean "harbour and fortified
26 Se eing Things H idde n
wine" but means either harbour or fortified wine, one ambiguous
word read as a synecdoche.
Hiding th e Unknowable
One consequence of the account of hiddenness given above is that
the unexperienced and the unknown prove to be categories as
distinct from the hidden as the fully experienced and the fully
known. However, this does not mean that the unexperienced or
unknown cannot be hidden any more than that the experienced
and the known cannot be hidden, only that becoming hidden must
involve ceasing to be unexperienced or unknown.Just as for some­
thing fully known going into hiding involves becoming less
knowable, so for something unexperienced or unknown hiding
involves becoming more knowable. In other words, being hidden
does not involve going into hiding, but coming into hiding. This is
less paradoxical than it sounds. It simply means that when something
becomes partially or selectively known the process of becoming
accessible to knowledge is simultaneously a coming into hiding. It
would seem to follow from this that something that was not merely
unknown but unknowable could never be hidden. Since only truth
can be hidden, those who deny that there are unknowable truths will
naturally conclude that it is doubly impossible for something
unknowable (and thus without a truth-value) to be hidden.
However, before reaching this conclusion it is worth considering
what unknowability is and how it differs from necessary hiddenness.
The inescapable hiddenness of the duck-rabbit can be thrown
into relief by comparison with something that superficially sounds
rather similar, like a round square or a square circle. A square-circle
is a single shape that is simultaneously and in the same respect
H idde n n e s s 27
sensible and perceptible a s both square and circular. I t might be
supposed that the square circle is always in some way hidden. Is it,
perhaps, like the duck-rabbit, always either disguised or partially
concealed with the result that it is never possible to see all of it at
once? Try drawing or imagining a square disguised as a circle. What
do you see? The circle that is disguising the square. So in what way
is the unseen square sensible (to your eyes) or perceptible (to your
mind's eye)? If the square is disguised there should be some point at
which its squareness is wholly or partially visible. But you cannot
even see a single straight line or right angle.The only thing that you
can see is a circle, so the square is not just disguised but completely
unknown.And since the square cannot be disguised in the circle, it
is impossible to imagine how we could ever come to suppose that
the circle we see was actually a circle and concealed square rather
than just a circle.
In the square-circle, we have an example of something that seems
to be unknowable, but unknowable in a distinctly different way to
the duck-rabbit. The duck-rabbit could never simultaneously be
known as both a duck and a rabbit, only as a duck or a rabbit that dis­
guised or concealed a duck or a rabbit. In contrast, the
square-circle, which can also never be known simultaneously as
both a square and a circle, can be known only as a square or a circle
and an unknown square or circle.So although both the square-circle
and the duck-rabbit are unknowable in the sense that neither can be
known simultaneously in both aspects, the duck-rabbit is unknow­
able only in the sense that it is necessarily hidden, while the
square-circle is unknowable in the more absolute sense that it can
never be known at all.
The different types of unknowability exemplified by the
duck-rabbit and the square-circle suggest that differing answers
must be offered to the question of whether the unknowable can be
28 S e e i n g T h i ng s H i d d e n
hidden. In the case of the duck-rabbit, the question is redundant,
for the duck-rabbit is necessarily already hidden. But in the case of
the square-circle, which is absolutely unknowable, hiding, if it is
possible at all, must mean something rather different. For a
square-circle to be hidden, the unknown square or circle would
have to be disguised or concealed; in other words brought from
absolute unknowability into hiding. Hiding something unknowable
must therefore involve revealing it.
Ducks and rabbits are mutually exclusive species of incompatible
appearance, and yet, with the duck-rabbit there is a single inscrip­
tion, the duck-rabbit, which is perceptibly a duck or a rabbit and
recognisably a duck and a rabbit. Before Jastrow, someone might
easily have tried to imagine such an inscription and assumed that
there could not be one.34 But all that was needed for what had once
been unimaginable to become reality was for someone to make the
duck-rabbit inscription. Could something comparable occur for
the square-circle? It seems impossible, but, in De Docta Ignorantia,
Nicholas of Cusa claims (not very convincingly) to have discovered
something similar - a possible inscription not of a square circle, but
of a triangular one.
Attempting to convey some idea of the divine through the use of
mathematical symbols, Cusa sets out to explain how God can be
both three and one by examining the way in which it might be pos­
sible for a circle, symbolising unity, to be a triangle, symbolising
trinity.The answer, he suggests, is to conceive of both as an infinite
line, for at infinity shapes converge.35 The claim that there is a figure
which is both a triangle and a circle is just one Nicholas's many
examples of the way in which contradictory attributes may be rec­
onciled, in accordance with his belief that
instead of regarding distinction and non-distinction as
H i d d e nn e s s 29
contradictories in theology, we must previously consider them
in their infinitely simple principle in which there is no differ­
ence between distinction and non-distinction.36
However, as h e implicitly acknowledges, accepting contradictories
creates difficulties of apprehension for the human intellect.Nicholas
makes no attempt to explain how the line that is a triangle, a circle
and a sphere might be seen, but this figure that is multiple figures
would appear to present the same difficulties as the Face of faces
described in De Visione Dei. Just as Wittgenstein would later suggest
that a contradiction "looks in both directions like a Janus head", 37 so
Nicholas uses the analogy of an icon whose gaze appears to follow
one around the room, and so appears to be facing east to someone
looking from the east, and facing west to someone looking from the
west. To Nicholas this suggests that God's face might be seen in a
potentially infinite number of incompatible ways:
just as the bodily eye, in looking through a red glass, judges as
red whatever it sees, and as green whatever it sees looking
through a green glass, so each mental eye, cloaked with con­
traction and affection, judges You, who are the object of the
mind, according to the nature of the contraction and the affec­
tion. A man can judge only in a human way. For example,
when a man ascribes a face to You, he does not seek it outside
the human species. . . . [but] if a lion were to ascribe to you a
face, he would judge it to be lion like; an ox oxlike; and an
eagle eaglelike.38
In each of these faces the Face of faces may be seen in what Nicholas
terms "a veiled and symbolic manner". Translated into the cate­
gories outlined above, we might want to say that although God's face
30 S e e i ng Things H i d d e n
may be sensed by all, each can perceive only what their particular
identity and position allows them to perceive, with the result that
what they perceive is only ever an infinite fraction of what might be
perceived.The face of the icon seen from the east is the same as that
seen from the west, but perception of one excludes perception of
the other.
However, just as it seemed possible that the duck-rabbit could be
perceived as a duck and a rabbit where one (or both) were dis­
guised, so this ox-eagle-lion-faced deity can be recognised more
fully on the assumption that it is concealed.
As Nicholas describes it, moving beyond the partial apprehension
of the Face of faces as one of its faces does not lead to the appre­
hension of all faces but of none. Seeing the Face of faces in anything
other than a veiled fashion (i. e. as a single face) involves entering an
"obscuring mist, haze, darkness, or ignorance" in which "there is no
knowledge or concept of a face". 39 This obscuring mist reveals God's
face rather in the way that the darkness that clouds the gaze reveals
the full light of the sun to someone staring directly at it, 40 and the
implication that the contradictory nature of the divine can be fully
recognised only as concealed is made more explicit when Nicholas
concludes that God "cannot be seen elsewhere than where impossi­
bility appears and stands in the way".This impossibility, or obscuring
mist, is then likened to a wall: "I have found the abode wherein You
dwell unveiledly - an abode surrounded by the coincidence of con­
tradictories. And [this coincidence] is the wall of Paradise, wherein
you dwell.»-41
Cusa's argument may therefore be summarised as follows. In
God contradictories are reconciled, so there are true contradic­
tions. Such true contradictions may be apprehended in one aspect or
another.If, however, one attempts to apprehend the coincidence of
contradictories together one apprehends only their concealment.
Hiddenness 31
Applying this argument to the triangular circle it quickly becomes
apparent that Cusa's account of necessary hiddenness parallels that of
the duck-rabbit. According to Cusa there is an inscription, an infi­
nite line, which is both a triangle and a circle ( just as the duck-rabbit
demonstrates that there is an inscription which is both a duck and a
rabbit). This might be apprehended as a circle or a triangle or a line
but not all of these things simultaneously, and if you do try to see all
simultaneously you will only meet with a concealment.Rather than
simply revealing the triangular circle, the infinite line marks the
limit of our attempts to imagine it. Cusa's discovery of something
that would make the impossible true therefore appears to be a hypo­
thetical example of the unknowable coming into hiding, a hiding that
is not a prelude to full discovery, but a necessary hiddenness.
Unknowa b le True C ontradi ct i ons
For Nicholas of Cusa the divine coincidence of opposites and the
hiddenness of God are not two separate doctrines but one, for the
former implies the latter. This twin concern with the contradic­
toriness and unknowability of God, which re-emerges so
provocatively in the writings of Pascal, may therefore be seen not so
much as a mystical obfuscation, but as the natural way to charac­
terise the ontic and epistemic status of something at the very limits
of human comprehension. But is this concern with hidden contra­
dictories of any relevance beyond the mystical tradition? Many
people would answer confidently in the negative, for the category of
the unknowable true contradiction is constituted by the intersection
of what might appear to be two empty categories, unknowable
truth and true contradiction. However, in the rest of this book, I
shall be arguing that the coming into hiding of unknowable true
32 S e e i ng Th i ng s H idd e n
H idde n n e s s 33

contradiction is a characteristic feature both of apocalyptic as a

thorough, i.e. if they knew all of those things that were logically
genre and of late modernity as a social and cultural formation. So,
implied by their actual knowledge. In other words incompletable
although this book does not set out to prove that there are unknow­
knowledge is knowledge that would be impossible to have simulta­
able true contradictions, only that there are thought to be such
neously or would be impossible for a particular individual to have
things, it may be useful to indicate why unknowable truths and true
simultaneously. Unknowable truths, like other things hidden, may
contradictions might not be considered as improbable as they some­
thus include both the selectively knowable and the partially know­
times are, and finally to argue that, if they do exist, true
able.
contradictions are less accessible to knowledge than their propo­
Arguments in favour of the acceptance of true contradictions
nents suppose.
have been advanced by a number of philosophers, notably Graham
The rejection of unknowable truth is usually the outcome of a
Priest.44 The issue here is not that true-seeming contradictions are
chain of reasoning that goes something like this: since all truths are
impossible to generate from valid premisses, but rather that, accord­
meaningful, and meaningful statements are verifiable, and verifi­
ing to classical logic, such contradictions are impossible to accept as
able statements knowable, all truths must be knowable as well.
true. For example, if we allow the seemingly unobjectionable sup­
However, as Roy Sorensen argues in Blindspots, there seem to be
position that some classes are members of themselves and others
some straightforward counterexamples to this generalisation. For
not, it follows that there is a class, namely the class of all classes
example, if modesty is the underestimation of one's self-worth, no
which are not members of themselves, which both is and is not a
one who is modest can know that they are modest without thereby
member of itself.Logical paradoxes like this are only the most clear­
being immodest. So although it is surely true that at least some
cut examples of the many situations in which apparently sound
people are modest, none of them can know it, for the truth is nec­
arguments produce contradictory conclusions. Others may be gen­
essarily hidden from them.42 Sorensen calls these areas that are
erated in the field of law. Suppose the law specifies that at crossroads
inaccessible to knowledge (or other propositional attitudes)
older drivers have priority over younger drivers and women drivers
blindspots. Other blindspots are created not by being unknowable to
over men. In cases where a younger woman meets an older man,
some subjects and knowable to others, but through being incom­
both have and do not have priority. Our first reaction to such exam­
pletely knowable to anyone. For example, a proposition such as "It
ples is to suppose that there must be something wrong with them.
is raining but no one knows that it is raining" can be known by no
But since, in the case of the logical paradoxes at least, there is no
one, because even though it may well be the case both that it is
generally accepted account of what is wrong with the arguments that
raining and that everyone is unaware that it is raining, no one can
generate them, it may be more sensible to question the assumption
know both of these things simultaneously. In Sorensen's account, this
that the law of non-contradiction holds in all cases. After all, P riest
feature of a blindspot is described as incompletability. 43 Propositions
argues, the so-called law of contradiction is only a theory about
such as the one given above are not themselves contradictory, but
how logical particles behave, and if we find occasions where they do
they would generate inconsistency if someone were episternically
not behave in the way the theory suggests, it seems reasonable to
34 Seeing Things Hidden
allow for the possibility that the theory might have less than univer­
sal application. If so, we should be open to the possibility that of two
states of affairs - A is true, and A is false - not only may one or the
other be true, but also both, and perhaps neither. If both are true,
we have a true contradiction, which Priest calls a dialetheia.
However, this necessitates no alarming changes to our semantics: -A
is true if and only if A is false and vice versa, so if A is both true and
false, -A is too, as is the conjunction A and -A. 45
Priest does not address the issue of whether it is possible to know
a true contradiction , but deals with the related question of whether
it is possible to believe one .46 According to Priest, believing con­
tradictions must be a simple matter since lots of people do in fact
believe contradictory things. Few people have consistent beliefs,
and even if they feel that consistency is desirable and revise their
beliefs whenever they discover them to be inconsistent, the very
possibility of realising that you have inconsistent beliefs strongly
suggests that it is possible to have them. As Priest puts it , "The
moment one realises one's beliefs are inconsistent, one does not
ipsofacto cease to believe the inconsistent things", so one must there­
fore be able to believe "two inconsistent sentences in the same
' mental breath"'.47
However, it might be argued that realising that you are commit­
ted to inconsistent beliefs is rather different ·from having those
beliefs . If it dawns on you that your beliefs are, in Sorensen's terms,
incompletable, there is no reason to suppose that you are so epis­
temically thorough as to hold simultaneously all the beliefs to which
you are committed . On the contrary, it is the realisation that you do
not, and indeed cannot , hold all the beliefs to which you are com­
mitted that prompts you to reassess your commitments.
Nevertheless, there are unquestionably some people who, like
Priest, claim to hold not merely incompletable beliefs but directly
Hiddenness 35
inconsistent ones. Amongst philosophers, Priest cites Nicholas of
Cusa as a prime example of someone who accepted contradicto­
ries.48 But, as we have seen , although Nicholas may have believed
contradictories he did not claim to be able to apprehend them simul­
taneously and in the same way. If there are true contradictions, it
does not automatically follow from the fact that they are true that
they are also simultaneously knowable. If some relatively straight­
forward truths are unknowable, a true contradiction is liable to be
even more problematic.
According to Priest, true contradictions arise when the condi­
tions of application of a sentence overlap w ith those of the
application of its negation . Generally speak ing, the absence of these
conditions for any given sentence is a sufficient condition of the
application of its negation (i.e. if something is false its negation is
true). But in the case of true contradictions this is obviously not
enough, for A and -A are both true at the same time. So there must
be some positive fact , such as the existence of sound arguments or
empirical evidence, which makes both A and -A simultaneously
true. Yet even supposing that there are facts (such as the good argu­
ments that result in logical paradoxes) which simultaneously sustain
the truth of some sentences and their negations, it does not follow
that these sentences are knowable or believable in the same way.
The suggestion that it is impossible to grasp a true contradiction
may seem like no more than common sense, but a variant of
Sorensen's arguments can be used against those who, like Priest,
deny that there is a problem. Knowledge implies truth, and a true
contradiction is both true and false. If , as is generally supposed, only
truth is knowable, a true contradiction is simultaneously both know­
able and unknowable. Put another way, if someone knows (A and
-A), they must know A and know -A (since knowledge distributes
over conjunction), and since A and -A are both true and false, they
36 S e e i n g Th i n g s Hi d d e n
Hid d e n n e s s 37

must also know A and �A and not know A and �A, a straight con­
true i.e. A (or �A) because believing A and �A together means
tradiction distinct from the original one (A and �A). Whatever fact
believing and not believing A (or �A). This is not to suggest that con­
justified the original contradiction will hardly justifY this one or the
tradictions are simply unknowable because knowing them generates
endless sequence of contradictions that can be derived from it (if I
more contradictions at an episternic level, but to indicate that even if
know A and do not know A then someone else can both know
true and knowable, contradictions are characterised by the partial
that I know and know that I do not know, which means that they
unknowability characteristic of the necessarily hidden.
know and do not know that I know, etc.) but even if there are such
Put in Sorensen's terms, we might want to say that if we are
facts (and it is not clear what would make one conclude that such
epistemically thorough we will find that contradictions are com­
knowledge was simultaneous) and all these contradictions are true,
pletable only if incompletable. And to see the analogy with the
we still cannot get away from the fact that contradictions are only
objects of perceptual knowledge discussed earlier, we have only to
never more than knowable and unknowable.
consider what would be involved in being epistemically thorough at
To flesh this out, it is helpful to reintroduce the idea of belief.
a single point in time. If having a belief before the mind is like having
If we accept that knowing means having a (justified) true
a percept, then we would have to say that having the true and false
belief, then not knowing may be caused either by having a
belief A would involve having before the mind the percept A where
false belief , or by not believing something that is true. Anyone
A was and was not true. Since what is false can no more be recog­
who believes that a contradiction is true is liable to do both of
nised than known, where A is true and false the belief A partially
these things. On the one hand, they believe A, which is both true
disguises the truth. Conversely, truly believing A and not believing
and false and so their belief is both true and false; and they also
'
A means that you both have and do not have the belief A, in other
believe �A (which is likewise both a true and a false belief ). On the
words that the percept A both is and is not simultaneously before the
other, it may be argued, if we accept the (slightly controversial)
mind, so A is partially concealed.
supposition that believing (A and �A) implies believing A and not
believing A, that believing (A and �A) means that someone will
also not believe A (or �A) , which makes no difference in that A
T h e Undecidable
(or �A) is false, but also means that they do not believe something
true, i . e. A (or A)
�
.
Although unknowable true contradictions are not something that
On this interpretation, knowing and not knowing a true contra­
most people assume to be part of their world , once the category has
diction can be conceived in two different ways. In so far as knowing
been established, its usefulness soon becomes apparent. Separating
(A and �A) means believing both A and �A separately, anyone who
the epistemic from the ontic character of contradiction allows us to
does so will not know A (or �A) because believing A (or �A) involves
make better sense of some of the more puzzling areas of our
believing something false; and in so far as knowing (A and �A) means
experience. In particular, it suggests that what is necessarily elusive
believing (A and �A) , anyone who does so will not believe something
may neither be, as some would claim, necessarily non-existent, nor,
38 S e e i n g T h ing s H i d d e n
as others would argue, necessarily non-definable, just necessarily
hidden. This approach has a direct bearing on postmodern philos­
ophy and social theory in that it suggests that one key category, "the
undecidable", may be less logically peculiar than is generally sup­
posed.
The "undecidable" is a term used by Godel to describe the incom­
pleteness of formal systems of axioms; appropriated by Derrida,
undecidables become "unities . . . that can no longer be included
within philosophical (binary) opposition, but which, however,
inhabit philosophical opposition, resisting and disorganizing it".49
Through a series of readings (one of which, "Plato's P harmacy", is
discussed in detail in chapter 2) Derrida has shown how certain
terms have this "double, contradictory, undecidable value" within the
texts in which they operate. 50
He has repeatedly claimed that "the 'undecidable' ...is not con­
tradiction in the Hegelian form of contradiction", 5 1 and does not
have "the punctual simplicity of a coincidentia oppositorum". 5 2
whenever trying to differentiate the undecidable from a simple true
contradiction, Derrida describes it either as a reserve in which con­
tradiction is concealed or else as an interchange in which one term
constantly disguises its opposite. For example, Derrida suggests that
the undecidable
holds in reserve, in its undecided shadow and vigil, the oppo­
sites and the differends that the process of discrimination will
come to carve out. Contradictions and pairs of opposites are
lifted from the bottom of this diacritical, differing, deferring,
reserve.53
but that when undecidables emerge from the shadows, they function
as "points of indefinite pivoting":
H i d d e nn e s s 39
These "words" admit into their games both contradiction and
noncontradiction (and the contradiction and noncontradic­
tion between contradiction and noncontradiction) . . .. Insofar
as the text depends upon them, bends to them [sy plie] , it thus
plays a double scene upon a double stage. It operates in two
absolutely different places at once, even if these are only sep­
arated by a veil, which is both traversed and not traversed,
intersected [entr'auvert] . 54
The undecidable would therefore seem to be characterised by just
that quality of necessary hiddenness by which true contradiction is
also known, appearing, on the one hand, to dwell within an
"obscuring mist" (as Nicholas put it), or else to appear in what
Nicholas too described as a "veiled manner" as one or another
incompatible term.
In par ticular, Derrida's frequent characterisation of the unde­
But cidable in terms of movement appears to echo what has
frequently been said about the fluid epistemic character of the
coincidentia oppositorum. Derrida considers Hegelian contradic­
tion to consist of "a releve of the binary oppositions of classical
idealism, a resolution of contradiction into a third term", 5 5
whereas the undecidable never constitutes a third term, but is
rather
the medium in which opposites are opposed, the movement and
the play that links them among themselves, reverses them or
makes one side cross over into the other (soul/body, good/ evil,
inside/ outside, memory I forgetfulness, speech/ writing etc.). 56
But it is worth noting that Lukacs credited Hegel with the same dis­
covery. According to Lukacs, Nicholas of Cusa and others had

40 Seeing Things Hidden
conceived only a static coincidentia oppositorum, but Hegel realised
that the coincidentia oppositorum was in fact necessarily a movement:
In the Jena Lo9ic Hegel even opposes annulment to the state of
annulment and his aim there is to ensure that the preservation
of division, duality, difference, non-identity in the ultimate
philosophical unity is seen as a movement, a movement which is
continuously renewed since its moments are constantly pos­
tulated and annulled. 57
And as Hegel noted in the Phenomenoloay if Spirit with reference to
the propositions that good and evil are the same and that they are dif­
ferent:
Since both are equally right, they are both equally wrong, and
the mistake consists in taking such abstract forms as "the same"
and "not the same", "identity" and "non-identity", to be some­
thing true, fixed, and actual, and in resting on them. Neither
the one nor the other has truth, the truth is just their move­
ment.58
Of course, Nicholas of Cusa had himself observed that the coinci­
dentia oppositorum appeared not as something static but as something
elusive - like a face that moves around the room with the observer,
forever shifting its gaze as it loses and gains new aspects - but the
mobility of contradiction generated by the interchange of contra­
dictory qualities is, it appears, something that may be repeatedly
forgotten and rediscovered. And since Derrida's undecidables are
defined as contradictions that lack the "punctual simplicity" that
mere contradictions are supposed to exhibit, there is little reason to
suppose them to be anything other than contradictions exhibiting
H iddenness 41
their necessary hiddenness. Derrida describes the undecidable as
"Neither / nor, that is, simultaneously either or", 59 but being simul­
taneously either or is just the epistemic consequence of being
ontically both and.
Some might argue that trying to pin down the logical character of
the undecidable is to miss the point that the undecidable is that
which cannot be classified, something that slips through the fingers
whenever we try to grasp it. But to suggest that the undecidable may
be true contradiction necessarily hidden is not to deprive the unde­
cidable of its elusiveness, only to account it. And given that the
concept has come to enjoy a privileged role within cultural and
social theory as a means of (dis)articulating the multiple ambiguities
of late modernity, the need for a more adequate explanation of
undecidability is evident. For example, Derrida's account of the
undecidable has been used by Zygmunt Bauman in Modernity and
Ambivalence to describe that "ubiquitous" other of modernity -
"undefmability, incoherence, incongruity, incompatibility, illogical­
ity, irrationality, ambiguity, confusion, undecidability,
ambivalence'>6° - which has become characteristic of postmodernity.
Unusually, Bauman identifies the undecidable primarily with "the
violation of the law of the excluded middle" rather than the abroga­
tion of the law of non-contradiction, 6 1 yet all his examples suggest
that, like Derrida, he is concerned not with the neutrality of the
undecidable in relation to binary opposites, but its ambivalence.
And since Bauman defines ambivalence as "the possibility of assign­
ing an object or an event to more than one category", 6 2 and assumes
that modernity "splits the world into two: entities that answer to the
name; [and] all the rest that do not",6 3 it is dear that he considers
ambivalent to be something which falls in both categories, i.e. a con­
tradiction. In fact, Bauman's work, like Derrida's own account of
the undecidable, makes no clear distinction between the law of the
42 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n H i d d e nn e s s 43

excluded middle and the law of non-contradiction and invariably
assumes that violations of the former have the ambivalent character
of the violations of the latter. Thus, for Bauman, the "archetypal"
undecidable is the stranger because he "is neither friend nor enemy ;
and because he may be both".64
The inability to specify the ontic rather than the epistemological
character of the undecidable means that it is defined only negatively.
So, according to Bauman, the stranger is, like other undecidables,
just the unintended consequence of the modern zeal for classifica­
tion: "the refuse left after the world has been cleanly cut into a slice
called ' us' and another labelled 'them"'.65 The net result is that the
distinguishing feature of contemporary society is simply that it has
no definable character.Modernity's ''bitter and relentless war against
ambivalence" inevitably produces as its waste product still
more ambivalence so that the "total of ambivalence on both the per­
sonal and societal plane seems to grow unstoppably", until, in
postmodernity, it acquires "the status ifa universal human condition". 66
Nevertheless, the undecidable remains no more than a negation for
necessary hiddenness not only embodies all the ambiguity and
obscurity of undecidability, but, because it is the epistemic mani­
festation of true contradiction, suggests an explanation, namely that
the hiddenness of things in the world may be the consequence of
contradictions coming into hiding.
In Part Two, I shall be arguing that late modernity has involved
just such a coming into hiding, not as an unintended consequence of
the modern project but as its realisation. First, however, I want to
broaden the scope of the discussion, for it can be argued that the
exclusion of contradiction from binary classification that underlies
this development is not, as Bauman claims, a distinctively modern
phenomenon, but rather a universal one.

Irrationality, chaos, strangerhood, ambivalence are all names

for that nameless "beyond" for which the dominant powers
that identified themselves as reason, as forces of order, as
natives, as meaning have no use. . . . They have no other
meaning but someone's refusal to tolerate them.67

As an explanatory concept within social and cultural theory, the

undecidable appears to have distinct limitations. At a descriptive
level it manages to convey the "ambiguity", "ambivalence", "obscu­
rity", and "fuzziness" of our experience of the contemporary
world,68 but, since it is not allowed any positive content or struc­
ture, it is of little use as an analytic tool. In contrast, the idea of
 PA RT ONE

Apocalypse a n d To t a l i t y
 2

Ap o c a ly p s e

What is apocalyptic? A genre in which the heavenly mysteries are

communicated through supernatural revelation? A belief that all his­
tory has a single irreversible conclusion? A teleological framework
for the understanding of evil? An attempt to usher in a new era by
redefining the rules of the redemptive process? A sense that each
passing moment stands in some significant relation to a beginning
and an end? A tone of disclosure, perhaps distinct from the content
of the discourse, revelatory if only in that it reveals itself?1
The differing answers given to the question reflect the range of
phenomena to which the label has been applied. The word "apoca­
lyptic" may be used to refer not only to the Judaeo-Christian texts
known as apocalypses and the movements they have inspired, but
also to comparable texts and movements in other religious tradi­
tions, and to forms of narrative, argumentation and ideology which,
without being explicitly religious, appear to share the same charac­
teristics. To argue that all these things share a single defining feature,
or even that they are linked by looser familial resemblances, is to
48 Seeing Things Hidden
Apocalypse 49

incorporate within a single category objects that are separated

If cross-cultural definitions are to avoid conceptual imperialism,
by major conceptual disjunctions. An inclusive definition of apocal­
they must be framed in terms equally relevant to all the societies
yptic must cross the divisions between Semitic and non-Semitic
concerned. One way to do this is to ensure that the terms used are
religions, the sacred and the secular, the literary and the
universal features of human society, or at least ones found in all
social, while at the same time keeping the original Judaeo-Christian
those societies in which the difiniendum is present. The account of
apocalypses somewhere near the centre of the field of reference. As
apocalyptic given below uses Judaeo-Christian materials rather than
if this were not enough, the Judaeo-Christian texts themselves resist
examples from other traditions, but it is designed to be applicable
easy classification: to some, their outstanding characteristic is their
within any cultural context, and is therefore articulated in terms of
eschatological orientation;2 to others, the redemptive closure of
factors that have some claim to be universal. The process of build­
human history is just one of many mysteries unveiled in a genre
ing up an account of a specific complex phenomenon using
defined less by its content than by the means through which secret
categories that are simple and universal is inevitably a gradual one.
knowledge is obtained. 3
So before embarking upon a discussion of apocalyptic itself, it is
It would, of course, be possible to dissolve the concept of apocal­
necessary to say something about the categories that will b e
yptic altogether and restrict discussion of the subject to its local
used to define it.
sub-categories or even to the individual texts and movements them­
selves. Alternatively, it might be argued that the ancient
Judaeo-Christian apocalypses are the primary referent, and that the
Univ ersals
term "apocalyptic" can be applied to other things only by cautious
expansion at the edges of this group, or by analogy with it. Both
The idea that all members of the human species share cultural as
responses are defensible, but neither makes any attempt to come to
well as biological characteristics is controversial. In the twentieth
terms with the fact that the terminology of apocalyptic is, or at least
century, many anthropologists have assumed that culture is an arbi­
appears to be, meaningfully used in other contexts. If parts of our
trary but fundamental determinant of human behaviour irreducible
vocabulary seem applicable outside of their original frame of refer­
to species-specific physiology or psychology. In consequence, uni­
ence, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this may have something
versals have frequently been dismissed as non-existent or trivial,
to do with the distribution of the referent. That "epic" seems to have
and great emphasis has been placed upon the global diversity of
a wider range of application than "sonnet" may not be solely a func­
social organisation and cultural forms. The problem with this
tion of the relative fuzziness of its definition; it may also be due to the
approach is empirical. Although it is impossible to prove beyond
presence of epics in a greater number of literatures, in which case it
doubt that there are universals present at all times and in all places,
is quite natural that "epic" should be defined, and perhaps redefined,
the available evidence strongly suggests that there are some lin­
in terms appropriate to its maximal extension rather than its original
guistic, perceptual, expressive and social characteristics common to
reference.
all societies, and many others which have developed independently
50 S e e ing T h in g s H i d d en
in a wide variety of contexts and are absent in only a handful.
Furthermore, some of the early fieldwork which purported to dis­
cover radical dissimilarities between cultures (such as that of Mead
on adolescence in Samoa, and of Whorf on the Hopi and time) has,
upon replication or re-examination, proved to be flawed. This in
itself proves nothing, but, combined with the steady accumulation
of linguistic universals provided by post-Chomskian linguistics,4
and the mounting evidence for inter-societal constants ranging
from colour identification, to facial expression, to incest avoid­
ance, it strongly suggests that cultural universals may be more
numerous than was once supposed. 5
However, the level at which universals are likely to be found is
quite basic. Even when, as in the case of kinship systems, continuing
ethnographic research has led not to a proliferation of forms but to
recognition of a limited range of possibilities, it has generally proved
impossible to reduce complex social arrangements to a single
model. But anthropologists such as Rodney Needham have been
able to show that complex social forms which are not reducible to
one another may nevertheless be "universally determined by a
restricted number of relational factors that express logical con­
straints and alternatives".6 Where this is the case, the universals,
although basic, are patently non-trivial, and may be said to constitute
primary factors of experience which permit meaningful comparison
between one tradition and another. The search for universals there­
fore involves not only an analysis of their distribution within human
societies, but also an appreciation of their cross-cultural role in the
production of more complex social forms. As Needham, who has
long advocated this mode of enquiry, observes,
the task of comparativism, on the scale of worldwide ethno­
graphy, is not only to isolate individual factors and their
Apocalypse 51
operation, but also to delineate the symbolic complexes that
are constituted by these factors in the collective representation
of human experienceJ
The idea that the task of the social scientist is the identification of
cross-cultural similarities and the articulation of complex social
forms in terms of such universals is, of course, fundamentally at
odds with any conception of social scientific enquiry which advocates
the concoction of ever thicker descriptions, or the interminable
unravelling of the delicate threads of difference. 8 However, even if
every form of life is in some sense unique, its uniqueness, if it is to
be recognised as such, can never be incomparable. Given that the
understanding of a social practice within a single culture inevitably
involves the elementary steps of comparison and classification, there
seems no intrinsic reason why the same procedures should not be
followed in cross-cultural contexts. Nevertheless, if a comparative
study of universal primary factors is to be fruitful it must distinguish
carefully the type and location of the factors involved. Universals
may be characterised by their substantive content or the pattern
created in the process they embody, and they may be located in the
individual mind, in the society, in the language, or in some combi­
nation of the above. In addition, it is important to distinguish
between factors recognised within the societies themselves, and
those that are discerned only by outside investigation. Some of the
most striking universals, like the colour terms found in numerous
societies in an identical sequence, are ernie factors relating to the
content of language. But those of most use to anthropologists, like
the universality of binary classification assumed by structuralism, are
etic factors relating to processes of the individual mind. In what
follows I will be arguing that apocalyptic , although not itself any­
thing like universal, can best be understood as a process structured
52 Seeing Things Hidden
by the relation between primary factors that represent etic processes
of either mind or society.
B iv alence
One of the most widely distributed features of human culture is
binary classification. Societies from all over the world conceptu­
alise their environment in terms of pairs of contraries : right/ left,
male/ female, day/night, white /black, etc. However, the degree to
which the binary principle also constitutes the organising principle
of a society varies considerably. Some societies believe the cosmos to
be structured on the basis of a polarity reproduced in their social
thought and institutions. Others assume a binary cosmos, but make
little or no attempt to reproduce its structure in other aspects of
their ideology or social life, while modern societies usually dispense
with a binary cosmology but may retain certain polarities as funda­
mental categories of thought and organisation. 9
In his analysis of binary oppositions in early Greek thought,
G.E.R. Lloyd found that
when natural phenomena as a whole are classified into two
groups, two general assumptions tend to be made: ( 1 ) that the
two classes are incompatible (not both the one and the other) ,
and (2) that they are exhaustive alternatives (either the one or
the other). 1 0
In many societies and texts (including, as we have noted, some con­
temporary theoretical writing), the distinction between opposites
that do, and those that do not, exclude a middle term is usually
ignored, and it is assumed that one form of undifferentiation is the
Apocalypse 53
equivalent of the other. It is only philosophical analysis that separates
the law of non-contradiction from the law of the excluded middle.
Thus in the Metaphysics, Aristotle quoted the Pythagorean "Table of
Opposites" but offered an analysis which demonstrated that whereas
some Pythagorean opposites (e.g. odd/even) were contradictories
that admit of no intermediary, others (e.g. good/ evil) were con­
traries between which there may be a mean. Nevertheless, Aristotle
maintained that in both cases the law of non-contradiction held
true.1 1 According to Hallpike's cross-cultural study of "primitive"
thought , the law of non-contradiction is also implicit in other soci­
eties as well : simple differentiation, the most basic form of binary
classification, requires the disjunction between the presence and
absence of a given property, so for differentiation to be possible, it
must at least be assumed that properties are not routinely both pres­
ent and absent in the same situation.1 2
If binary classification presupposes the law of non-contradiction,
we may be justified in assuming that bivalence is as universal as bina­
rity. The empirical study of logical universals lags behind the study
of binar y systems, and there may be few societies in which abstract
thought has developed to the extent that such principles are explic­
itly formulated, but there is every reason to suppose that the
principle of non-contradiction is amongst them. The major system
of logic independent of the Aristotelian tradition is found in Indian
philosophy. But the notion that the law of non-contradiction is
unknown, or routinely abrogated, within Indian thought has been
convincingly refuted by Frits Staal, who has demonstrated the pres­
ence of non-contradiction as a meta-rule in both the Vedic ritual
prescriptions given in the Srauta-siitra and in the work of early gram­
marians like Piii).ini. 1 3
How i s the apparent cultural universality of bivalence t o be
explained? It may be argued that bivalence is a fundamental property
54 S e e in g T h i ng s H i d d e n A po calypse 55

of either the natural world or the human brain. Thus structuralists was forced to acknowledge that, although it was impossible for the

have assumed that the impulse to bivalence arises naturally from same thing to be and not be, some, like Heraclitus, thought that it

the bicamerality of the brain, while Hallpike suggests it is not "a could. 1 8 And as Graham Priest has recently demonstrated, western

manifestation of a binary property of the human mind, imposing philosophers have repeatedly discovered that contradictions are to be

itself on a neutral range of phenomena, but rather an accommoda­ found at the limits of expression, iteration, cognition and concep­

tion to a dualistic reality". 14 It is, of course, also theoretically tion. 1 9 Most philosophers have been unwilling to acknowledge the

possible that both are true, but whatever is the case, the result is the presence of contradiction, but, given its apparent ineradicability, it

same: binary culture is simply a reflection of binary nature, and so, may be better to accept, with Hegel, that "Common experience

as Levi-Strauss puts it, itself enunciates . . . that there is a host of contradictory things, con­
tradictory arrangements, whose contradiction exists not merely in

duality, alternation, opposition and symmetry, whether pre­ external reflection but in themselves."2 0

sented in definite forms or in imprecise forms, are not so Not only contradictions but also intermediate or indeterminate

much matters to be explained, as basic and immediate data of values are frequently to be found in situations apparently governed

mental and social reality which should be the starting point of by binary oppositions. Thus, as Levi-Strauss concedes, dual organi­

any attempt at explanation. 1 5 sations (like that of the Winnebago) often prove to be "an imperfect
rationalization of systems which remain irreducible to a dualism, in

However, there is evidence to suggest that binarity, although cul­ which guise they vainly try to masquerade". 2 1 In structuralist analy­

turally universal, is nevertheless not a fundamental datum of both sis, such triadic divisions are usually resolved by incorporating the

mental and natural life. If it were, all phenomena would fall naturally mediating element into one or another of the poles, but, as Allen

into binary categories. However, this is not the case; binarity may be observes, "all those who write in a structuralist mode about transi­
2
universal but it is never total. Anthropologists since Levy-Bruhl tion, liminality and mediation also call on triadic formulae". 2

have noted that the conceptual world of non-western peoples fre­ Where an anthropologist allows that a third value might be system­

quently seems to allow for conceptual conjunctions that appear atically recognised there is usually abundant evidence of its

impossible, and as Serge Tcherkezoff observes: "All accounts of tra­ independent existence, as in Anita Jacobson-Widding's etlmography

ditional classification point to the existence of contradictions, but of colour terms in the Lower Congo, which found "explicit recog­

modern logic fmds them unacceptable."1 6 nition of a third, indeterminate value in its own right within the

According to Levi-Strauss, such contradictions are also unac­ traditional cultural system, besides two determinate values". 2 3

ceptable to traditional societies and constitute the stimulus for If undifferentiation (i .e. contradiction and/ or indeterminacy)

mythic thought, whose primary purpose is "to provide a logical occurs naturally as a direct result of the mind's engagement with the

model" capable of overcoming them . 1 7 But it is not only in non­ environment, there seems no necessary reason why all human soci­

western thought-systems that contradictions are generated. Aristotle eties should have adopted binary systems of classification in which
 Apocalypse 57
56 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n

dominant element stands for the whole represented by the pair

undifferentiated elements are the exception rather than the rule.
taken together, and so its contrary, although opposed, is neverthe­
However, anthropologists who suspect that polyvalent cultures are
less encompassed within it. The subordinated element has no
transformed into bivalent ones by ethnographers obsessed with
independent identity, and exists only as a contradiction within the
binary classification have not found cultural systems in which con­
whole. The corollary of this is that contradiction, rather than unset­
tradictory, or even indeterminate values are systematically
tling or undermining the basic opposition, is actually co-extensive
recognised in all aspects of social life. Thus, despite setting out to
with the subordinated element. Thus, in the opposition between
discover such a third value, Jacobson-Widding found only that a
right and left, if right stands for the whole of the body formed by
bivalent mode of cognition for rational!judicial processes co-existed
the right and left halves together, the left and the right-and-left are
alongside a trivalent mode used in situations where lack of evidence,
together subordinated to it. 25
the intrinsic irrationality of the subject-matter, or the imperfections
Louis Dumont, whose work has defined hierarchical opposition,
of the social system made bivalence inappropriate. 24
describes it with relish as "a logical scandal", and his followers, like
Comparative evidence therefore suggests that although binary
Tcherkezoff, suggest that, by incorporating contradiction, hierar­
differentiation and undifferentiation are both compatible with
chical opposition offers a model of classification superior to a
mental and physical structures, the former invariably predominates
symmetrical binary system in which contradiction is disallowed. 2 6
over the latter. It is simply never the case that a society operates on
However, the effect of the hierarchical model is that contradiction '
the assumption that there is a vast number of contradictory or inde­
rather than being treated in its own terms, is systematically elided
terminate things bounded by extremes in which properties are
with the subordinated element, while indeterminacy is simply dis­
differentiated from their opposites. But although acceptance of
solved altogether. So Dumont suggests that Hegel's definition of
undifferentiation may be rare, if it is a universal possibility the pre­
the infinite as "the union of the infinite and the finite" (according to
dominance of bivalence is a contingent rather than a necessary
Priest, a paradigmatic example of the contradictions to be found at
feature of human societies. Contrary to Levi-Strauss's claim, it
the limits of thought) is actually an implicitly hierarchical opposition
would appear that bivalence is just as much in need of explanation as
in which the infinite encompasses the fmite, arguing that although
its alternatives. Why bivalence should be preferred need not con­
Hegel makes the contradictory statement that the infinite contains
cern us here; what we need to do is explain how the predominance
the finite and the finite contains the infinite, "the latter statement is
of binarity is maintained.
obviously not true in the same sense as the former". 27 While at an
The suppression of undifferentiation in human societies is usually
ethnographic level, Tcherkezoff not only ignores the implicitly tri­
described either in terms of subordination or in terms of exclu­
adic structure of the Winnebago and other societies described by
sion. In the former case, it is argued that the human tendency to
Levi- Strauss, but, faced with the possibility that the Nyamwezi have
think by distinctions and so create systematic oppositions results
an underlying ternary scheme ofblack-red-white in which red is "an
not in symmetrical binary opposites, but in hierarchical oppositions
ambivalent or indeterminate" value, argues that because red is in a
in which the dominant element in any pair includes the other. The
58 S e e ing T h i n g s H i d d e n
certain sense outside the hierarchical opposition of black and white,
it is not a colour value at all. 2 8
Although the notion of hierarchical opposition may be of value in
certain circumstances, it does little to illuminate the process by
which undifferentiation is marginalised. Given that pre-philosophi­
cal dualisms exclude both contradictions and indeterminacies, a
theory that ignores indeterminacy and, by supposing subordination
to be in itself a form of contradiction, fails to differentiate between
negation and contradiction, is not so much an explanation as an
example of the marginalisation of undifferentiation in which all con­
tradictions and indeterminacies are reduced to the hierarchy of A
and -A. In contrast, accounts of undifferentiation that treat it as
something that is excluded from systems of binary opposition at
least have the merit of treating it as a distinct logical (im)possibility,
and it is to these that we now turn.
A b j ecti on and Tab o o
Within societies in which the principle of bivalence i s assumed, the
experience of contradictions in the external world is not usually
viewed with equanimity or treated in a spirit of scientific curiosity.
As Hegel observed, contradictions in actuality or thought are con­
sidered "a kind of abnormality and a passing paroxysm of sickness".
Hegel's own preferred example of contradiction was external sen­
suous motion: "Something moves, not because at one moment it is
here and at another there, but because at one and the same moment
it is here and not here, because in this 'here' , it at once is and is
not."29 Hegel offered no phenomenology of the contradiction, but
Sartre provides one in his remarkable account of le visqueux, the
slimy.
Apocalypse 59
Believing that feelings of repugnance towards slime are universal,
Sartre attempts to explain why the slimy, both as a material sub­
stance and as a metaphorical property, should always inspire disgust:
What mode of being is symbolized by the slimy? . . . At first,
with the appearance of a fluid it manifests to us a being which
is everywhere fleeing and yet everywhere similar to itself. . . .
But immediately the slimy reveals itself as essentially ambigu­
ous because its fluidity exists in slow motion; there is sticky
thickness in its liquidity; it represents in itself a dawning tri­
umph of the solid over the liquid. 3 0
Although he does not acknowledge the parallel, Sartre's definition of
slime echoes Hegel's characterisation of motion as a contradiction in
which something is simultaneously here and not here. It is as though
the contradictory properties of simultaneously being here and not
here have been distilled into an appalling new substance in which
that contradiction is not a temporary result of motion but the very
essence of the substance itself. According to Sartre, slime is that in
which change is a permanent state and thus self-contradictory, a
contradiction revealed in the infinite slowness of the transformation:
Slime is the agony of water. It presents itself as a phenomenon
in process of becoming; it does not have the permanence within
change that water has but on the contrary represents an accom­
plished break in a change of state. This fixed instability in
the slimy discourages possession. Water is more fleeting, but it
can be possessed in its very flight as something fleeting. The
slimy flees with a heavy flight. . . . [but] this flight can not be
possessed because it denies itself as flight. It is already almost
a solid permanence. Nothing testifies more clearly to its
 Apocalypse 61
60 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n

ambiguous character as a "substance in between two states" are formed in the same fashion. As Kristeva argues, abjection is

than the slowness with which the slimy melts into itself. 3 1 caused by "what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not
respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous ,

However, slime does not merely melt into itself, it threatens to dis­ the composite."38 Like the slimy, it yokes together opposites : "abjec­

solve other boundaries as well. To touch the slimy is "to risk being tion is above all ambiguity. . . . it does not radically cut off the

dissolved in sliminess": 32 slime sticks to the fingers, so in the act of subject from what threatens it - on the contrary, abjection acknowl­

appropriating the slimy, the slimy possesses me, eliding the distinc­ edges it to be in perpetual danger". 39 In the abject and the slimy the

tion between self and non-self. The dissolution of difference is subject and its other are united without either being cancelled, each

instantly contagious: slime elides the distinction not only between enduring to qualify, undermine, or negate what is simultaneously

self and world but between all the other objects in the world: "so asserted.

long as the contact with the slimy endures, everything takes place for Despite echoing Sartre in her identification of the abject with the

us as if sliminess were the meaning of the entire world". 33 Thus, female body, Kristeva does not refer directly to his discussion of le

Sartre concludes: "Sliminess is . . . a symbol of an antivalue; it is a visqueux in Being and Nothingness. Nevertheless, the affinity is clear,

type of being not realised but threatening which will perpetually not least from the fact that Kristeva makes frequent use of Mary

haunt consciousness as the constant danger which it is fleeing."34 Douglas's account of defilement in Purity and Danger which was itself

In Powers if Horror, Julia Kristeva describes an experience that is openly inspired by Sartre's description of slime . 4° Kristeva cites

uncannily similar. Distinguishing between negation and exclusion, Douglas's work to illustrate the claim that, in contrast to matrilineal

she argues that whereas the negated is an identifiable object distinct societies where abjection takes on the form of the exclusion of a sub­

from the subject and thus constitutive of the subject's separate stance then considered sacred, in patriarchal religions like Judaism,

identity, the excluded offers a more insidious threat: "Not me. Not abjection is an exclusion that marks out an area that is taboo, or pol­

that. But not nothing either. A 'something' that I do not recognise luting. 41 Although Douglas herself makes no comparable distinction

as a thing. A weight of meaninglessness, about which there is noth­ between the taboo and the sacred, her argument is worth examining

ing insignificant."35 To this non-object, which is "ejected beyond the in order to uncover the logical structure of Kristeva's theory.

scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable", 36 Kristeva gives In Douglas's analysis of the abominations of Leviticus, the defm­

the name of the abject. The abject cannot be accommodated within ing characteristic of the impure is its ambiguity or hybrid quality.

the conventional framework of affirmation and negation and must The concern with the avoidance of mixture is evident from

be radically excluded, but, like the slimy, it is also "something Leviticus : "You shall keep my rules. You shall not allow two differ­

rejected from which one does not part" and so it remains at the ent kinds of beast to mate together. You shall not plant your field

limits of the imaginary, pointing "toward the place where meaning with two kinds of seed. You shall not put on a garment woven with

collapses". 37 two kinds of yarn.'>42 Douglas extends the logic of these prohibitions

The slimy and the abject occupy the same teritory because they to explain the distinction between clean and unclean animals. Clean
62 S e e ing T h i n g s H i d d e n Apocalypse 63

species all have the attributes associated with the environment in i ) Social order i s secured by difference. When socially differenti­

which they live: wings and two legs for the air, four legs for the land, ated, human beings suffer from a form of ontological insecurity that

and fins for the water, etc. The unclean are those species in whom leads them to suspect that others may, by virtue of difference, enjoy

the characteristics of the clean are absent or mixed. Hence aquatic a superior state of being. The practice of imitation is an attempt to

creatures that have fins and scales are clean, while those that live in deal with this insecurity. Imitation of another involves sharing the

the water without having these quintessentially fishy characteristics same desires. This results in mimetic rivalry, because the satisfaction

are not. Similarly, cud-chewing animals with cloven hoofs are clean, of a single desire is impossible for all who share it. Individuals come

but cud-chewing animals without cloven hoofs and cloven-hoofed to see others solely as obstacles to the realisation of their desires. The

animals that do not chew the cud are an abomination. 43 outcome is uncontrollable violence, in which all social differences are

According to Douglas, the taboo is that which does not fit into a eradicated and all are reduced to being doubles of their enemies.

scheme of classification defined in binary terms. Edmund Leach ii) Because mimetic violence destroys difference it can be stopped

agrees: only by the reintroduction of difference. This is effected through the

selection, often on the basis of some arbitrary distinguishing char­

The general theory of taboo applies to categories which are acteristic, of a scapegoat to whom all the difference-dissolving

anomalous with respect to clear-cut category distinctions. If A crimes of the mimetic crisis can be attributed. The scapegoat is sep­

and B are two verbal categories, such that B is defined as "what arated from the rest of the community and killed with the active

A is not" and vice versa, and there is a third category C which consent of all. By disposing of the scapegoat as the embodiment of

mediates this distinction, in that C shares attributes of both A undifferentiation and the obstacle to all desires, the participants in

and B, then C will be taboo. 44 the mimetic crisis are unanimously reconciled to the differences
that distinguish them from one another.

If taboo can be analysed successfully in terms of contradiction, it iii) The scapegoat mechanism is the foundation of all societies.

suggests that taboo may be one of the ways in which undifferentia­ The scapegoat is perceived to be both the source of disorder and the

tion is dealt with in societies where no law of non-contradiction is means of reconciliation and thus may be considered sacred . Entities

explicitly formulated.45 that are similarly undifferentiated, such as twins, are treated as
taboo. The founding murder is re-enacted in the form of ritual sac­
rifice. Mythology disguises the arbitrary character of the process by

S cap eg oat i ng and S acr i f i ce investing the scapegoat with supernatural power and reaffirming its
guilt. The collective murder of an innocent victim is thus presented

An alternative (although not entirely incompatible) account of the as the salvific death of the (sometimes sacred) being responsible for

exclusion of undifferentiation is provided by Rene Girard's theory of the original crisis. All human culture is thus an elaborate mystifica­

sacrifice.46 Girard's hypothesis can be summarised as follows : tion of the crime that made it possible.
64 S e e i n g T h i ng s H i d d e n
iv) There are, however, a few sources, most notably the Christian
gospels, that tell a different story. In these works the scapegoat is por­
trayed not as a supernatural being capable of causing chaos and
effecting its resolution, but as the innocent and impotent victim of a
social process. Because of the revelatory demystifying potential of this
perspective, western science has been able to free itself from super­
natural explanations of physical and social events. As a result, modern
western society is remarkably free of persecution and is at least
potentially able to perceive, for the first time in history, the arbitrary
and murderous practices of other cultures for what they are.
Although it is presented in extravagantly ethnocentric terms,
Girard's is recognisably a post-structuralist, perhaps even decon­
structive, project. 47 Levi-Strauss admitted that "a discrete system is
produced by the destruction of certain elements or their removal
from the original whole", 48 but made no real attempt to analyse the
process of exclusion. Although he perceived ritual as an attempt to
return temporarily to the undifferentiated immediacy of primordial
chaos, and as an escape from differential order, he did not see much
significance in the similarity between the pre-differential and the
anti-differential. Ritual was but "a bastardization of thought, brought
about by the constraints of life". 49
Girard, on the other hand, accepts that culture is formed by dif­
ference, but does not relegate the undifferentiated to the margins
of his enquiry. His underlying question is: "How is a society
possible?" Because he assumes that social systems are differential,
he is forced to ask the supplementary question: "How is difference
possible?" His answer, perhaps inevitably, is that difference is
made possible through the exclusion of the undifferentiated. (For
Girard, the undifferentiated is that which, although distinct, is
defmed by its identity with something else - a twin, for example -
or which implicitly denies the reality of difference by combining or
A po calypse 65
incorporating what is incommensurable . ) His project is an attempt
to recover an awareness of what has been excluded by examining the
means of exclusion. Like Derrida, Girard is concerned with the
exclusions that constitute the possibility conditions of meaning;
except that in his case the field of reference is not primarily the
text, but the flesh and blood, and above all the shed blood and sac­
rificed flesh, of human history.
Girard starts with works that are now routinely read as texts
of persecution - such as Guillaume de Machaut's Le Juaement du
Roy de Navarre, 5 0 which describes the massacre of the Jews
whose crimes are deemed responsible for the plague in the town
where the poet lives - and invites readers to employ the same
demythologising techniques to texts in which (unlike the literature of
medieval anti-Semitism) the guilt of the victims is still assumed. The
Oedipus myth is one example. There is a plague; Oedipus is held to
be responsible on account of the difference-dissolving crimes of
incest and parricide, and is banished so that order can be restored.
Rather than being pure fiction, or the realisation of guilty infantile
desires, the story of Oedipus is, Girard claims, another text of per­
secution, the mythologised version of the historical scapegoating of
an innocent cripple. There is no Oedipus complex: Oedipus was
innocent. 5 1
The juxtaposition o f the Oedipus myth with an anti- Semitic text
may seem far-fetched, but it is given some justification by the con­
flation of Oedipus and Judas Iscariot in medieval Christianity. In
the life of St Matthew in the Golden Leaend, Judas's parents are
warned of their son's future role, and set the infant adrift in a small
chest; he lands on the island of Iscariot and is adopted by the queen,
but is forced to flee after murdering his new brother; on his return
to Jerusalem, Judas inadvertently kills his father and marries his
mother, and then repentantly j oins the followers of Jesus - which is
66 Se e i n g T h i n g s H id d e n
when the trouble really starts. 52 Girard seems never to have dis­
cussed the story, but it provides striking support of his thesis, for
within the figure of Judas, the emblematic focus of anti-Semitic
persecution, are contained two Girardian scapegoats - Oedipus
himself, and Moses, the adoptive murderer. 53
Although Girard believes that all myths can be demythologised in
this way, it is far from clear that his hypothesis is universally appli­
cable. However, it offers another account of the way in which
entities that are taken to be undifferentiated within systems of binary
classification may be excluded from the symbolic order, and, as
such, provides another explanation of the way in which bivalence
may be maintained.
S acrifice and Tab o o
Although it may be wrong to suppose that taboo and sacrifice are
invariably or solely concerned with the exclusion of the undifferen­
tiated , there seems good reason to believe that both practices
sometimes fulfil this function. Given that this is the case, it is worth
considering the relationship between them. Kristeva imagines undif­
ferentiation in psychoanalytic terms as the pre-objectal fusion with
the mother, and Girard conceives of it as a mimetic crisis, but both
are concerned with the convulsive transition from undifferentiation
to difference, what Kristeva calls "the immemorial violence with
which a body becomes separated from another body in order to
be". 54 This process , whether described in terms of abjection or the
scapegoat mechanism, is characterised by the exclusion of the undif­
ferentiated , and the establishment of a symbolic and social order
maintained through institutionalised forms of abjection or scape­
goating, namely taboo or sacrifice.
Apocalypse 67
The shared dynamic suggests that even though they do not have
exactly the same understanding of sacrifice and taboo, Girard's and
Kristeva's theories may be compatible. Both suggest that sacrifice
and taboo are alternative methods of dealing with an identical prob­
lem: the undifferentiated can be eliminated either through death or
avoidance , and one solution renders the other superfluous .
According to Girard, entities that symbolise undifferentiation are
treated as taboo in order to prevent them spreading the contagion of
undifferentiation and so precipitating a mimetic crisis that will
require another scapegoat. According to Kristeva, treating some­
thing as taboo forestalls the need to kill it: abomination, like the
abominations of Leviticus, is thus "an attempt to throttle murder"
which establishes a new law: "prohibition instead <if killing" . 55
Sacrifice and taboo are not, however, mutually exclusive alterna­
tives. Not only do they co-exist within the same societies, but it is
possible for them to be combined. In general, one precludes the
other: sacrificial animals must be handled, killed and eaten, whereas
taboo animals must be avoided. But although killing a taboo animal
or treating a sacrificial animal as taboo can only ever be an exception
to the usual rule, it is not unknown. An example of the latter prac­
tice is offered by the Levitical account of the expulsion of the
scapegoat. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest takes two
goats, sacrifices one and gives the other to a man to release in the
wilderness. By being removed from the camp, the area of ritual
purity, and taken into the wilderness, the zone of ritual impurity, the
scapegoat is in effect treated as an unclean animal, and the man who
takes it into the wilderness can only re-enter the camp after wash­
ing his clothes and bathing in water, a precaution otherwise required
of those who have had contact with the corpses of unclean ani­
mals. 5 6 The co-existence and occasional convergence of taboo and
sacrifice suggest that they are alternatives which may be conjoined
68 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
for mutual reinforcement. And if the exclusion of undifferentiation
is understood to be not merely the form of these practices but also
their shared symbolic function, it is possible to argue that they rep­
resent complementary but compatible solutions to the same
problem: sacrifice symbolically re-enacting the originary exclusion
of undifferentiation through the killing of differentiated entities,
while taboo maintains that exclusion through the avoidance of undif­
ferentiated entities. On this hypothesis, the significance of the
convergence of the two practices in the Levitical scapegoat derives
from the fact that, when conjoined, the exclusionary logic of both is
laid bare.
A p ocaly p se and Tab o o
In Powers if Horror, Kristeva argues that Celine adds to the semantic
ambivalences of the carnivalesque "the merciless crashing of the
apocalypse". 57 His apocalyptic vision is, she suggests, marked not
just by an "end-of-the-world flavour" but by "suffering, horror, and
their convergence on abjection". 5 8 This willingness to embrace the
abject is, she argues, not just a consequence of Celine's apocalypti­
cism, but constitutive of it:
Abjection, when all is said and done, is the other facet of reli­
gious, moral, and ideological codes, on which rest the sleep of
individuals and the breathing spells of societies. Such codes are
abjection's purification and repression. But the return of their
represse d rnake up our "apoca1ypse" . 59
Despite believing that "The vision of the ab-ject is, by definition, the
sign of an impossible ob-ject, a boundary and a limit",6° Kristeva
Apocalypse 69
makes no further connection between the equation of apocalyptic
with visions of abjection and her earlier identification of the
abject with taboo. But her remarks may nevertheless point the way
to an understanding of the relationship.
Although it is commonplace for apocalyptically orientated move­
ments to disregard the taboos that define their culture , the
transgressive reversal of existing practices is perhaps most clearly
seen in social groups where taboo is of particular importance.
Examples include the Sabbatian movement in seventeenth-century
Judaism and the so-called cargo cults of Melanesia. Sabbatai Zevi,
whose messiahship was initially accepted by ninety per cent of the
Jewish population, rapidly became the focus of apocalyptic expec­
tation. In a supplement to the Vision if R. Abraham, a purportedly
medieval apocalypse which identified Sabbatai as the true messiah
whose "kingdom shall be forevermore", it was predicted that
Sabbatai would receive "a new law and new commandments to
repair all the worlds" and that in 1 658 he would bless "Him who per­
mits that which is forbidden". 61 The event to which the apocalypse
referred took place in Palestine, where Sabbatai persuaded ten
Israelites to eat fat of kidney, and pronounced the blessing over it.
This was a shocking transgression of Jewish taboo, which, as
Gershom Scholem observes, "raised the standard of rebellion against
the hallowed traditions of the Law, and abrogated its prohibitions -
including by implication, those against incest and fornication"Y
The Sabbatians soon became renowned for their licence, and even if
the reports were exaggerated by opponents, there can be little doubt
that there was a direct connection between the movement's apoca­
lyptic expectations and its disregard of taboo.
Kenelm Burridge's study of millenarians in Polynesia and
Melanesia found a similar pattern and led him to suggest that such
groups usually revert to a "pre-human state: a condition without
-
70 Se e i n g Thin g s H i d d e n
rules and lacking in particular that fundamental rule of community
life, the incest taboo".63 The conclusion may be overstated, but
there is abundant evidence that apocalyptic expectation in Melanesia
led to the conscious transgression of existing taboos. For example,
both the Vailala Madness in Papua in the early 1 920s and the Naked
Cult of the New Hebrides in the late 1 940s abandoned previous
restrictions and scrapped many important taboos. 64 Tsek, the leader
of the Naked Cult, defied tradition by contracting an endogamous
marriage, as did Filo, the female leader of another Papuan cult in the
1 9 30s.65
Peter Worsley (from whom these examples are taken) argues
that "the cults' insistence on deliberately breaking with the cus­
toms, traditions, habits and values of the past" heightens emotion,
and that the "ritual breaking of taboos is thus a most powerful mech­
anism of political integration". 66 Within the colonial context, these
transgressive practices may well have had the latent function Worsley
attributes to them, but it would be wrong to imagine that the break­
ing of taboos is associated only with the exigencies of millenarianism
as a social movement. The Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic texts are
themselves almost uniform in their insistence that prior to the end
there will be a time of mixture, in which order breaks down and
taboos are broken. According to the apocryphal book of Jubilees,
the apocalyptic woes will fall upon a generation that "transgresses on
the earth and practises uncleanness and fornication and pollution and
abominations". 67 But the confusion is less a characteristic of the
people than a symptom of the times themselves. Thus the Syriac
Baruch describes twelve successive periods of apocalyptic distress,
culminating in an eleventh period in which there is "much wicked­
ness and impurity", and a twelfth period in which there is chaos
resulting from the mixing together of all the previous woes. 68
The identification of the apocalyptic time of mixture with the
Apocalyp se 71
transgression of taboo is perhaps clearest in the parable of the wheat
and the tares. A man sows wheat in his field, and his enemy tares;
both grow together until the harvest, when the wheat is gathered
into the barn and the tares are bundled up for burning. 69 The tares
amongst the wheat, like the wolves in sheep's clothing,70 are a
powerful metaphor for the mingling together of opposites that
typifies the apocalyptic period, but both are also a transgression of
taboo, a situation that arises from the direct contravention of the
Levitical injunction not to plant a field with two types of seed and
not to allow animal species to become confused. Within the Judaeo­
Christian tradition in particular, broken taboo becomes the primary
index to the proximity of the end. In Daniel, the beginning of the
end-time is linked to the end of daily sacrifice and the simultaneous
setting up of the mysterious "abomination of desolation",71 and in
Mark this "abomination of desolation" becomes the signal by which
Christians will know that the apocalyptic woes are beginning. 72 The
exact meaning of the "abomination of desolation" has never been
clear, but it undoubtedly refers to some transgression of taboo com­
parable to the desecration of the temple to which Daniel alluded.
The reversal of customary taboos embodied in apocalyptic may
extend beyond the disregard for taboos in millenarian cults, and
the identification of eschatological confusion with the dissolution of
taboo. There is much to suggest that the genre is not just a revelation
of the dissolution of taboos, but itself a taboo revelation. What is
seen in apocalyptic vision is more often than not a series of symbols
embodying what is otherwise prohibited. The Levitical prohibition
against planting a field with two types of seed is connected to the
prohibition against the conjunction of beasts of different kinds
(described in Leviticus as the mating, and in Deuteronomy as the
yoking, of different species)73 and to the abomination of unclean ani­
mals that represent such ambiguities. Yet apocalyptic revelations
72 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
are full not only of unclean animals but of strange hybrids : a lion
with eagle's wings, and a leopard with four heads and the four wings
of a bird in Daniel 7 ; a beast like a leopard, with the feet of a bear
and the mouth of a lion, in Revelation 1 3 , and its companion, a beast
like a lamb that speaks like a dragon. The "Animal Apocalypse" of 1
Enoch (see below) is simply a sequence of such animal miscegena­
tions. In these contexts it would appear that both the unclean
creatures and the hybrids are essentially symbols of the same
process. As David Bryan observes: "The Mischwesen [hybrids] are
best seen as an intensified unclean creature, that is, as an increase in
the presence of chaos in the world ."74 Just as in Baruch, where the
eleventh woe of impurity is followed by a final woe in which all the
other woes are mixed together, the Mischwesen represent a mixture
of impure elements which are themselves defined by their mixed
attributes. The logic of apocalyptic seems to culminate in the max­
imisation of undifferentiation, in the mixture of mixture.
Viewed in this light, Peter's vision in Acts 1 0 seems more typical
of the apocalyptic genre than is sometimes supposed. Falling into a
trance on the roof of his house, Peter sees the heavens open and a
great sheet lowered full of taboo animals which he is invited to kill
and eat. The meaning of the vision - namely that the early Jewish
Christians should break with taboo and accept the previously incon­
ceivable idea that there might be Gentile Christians - is immediately
apparent,75 but what is significant is the way the message itself is
coded. Not only does the vision portray an open heaven - according
to Rowland, the typical feature of the apocalyptic revelation of heav­
enly secrets76 - but what is revealed is something that is otherwise
taboo. Apocalyptic, it seems, does not merely anticipate a trans­
gressive time of mixture but actually presents that time through
transgressive symbols. According to Derrida, "all language on apoc­
alypse is also apocalyptic and cannot be excluded from its object". 77
Apocalypse 73
This may or may not be true, but there can be little doubt that
apocalyptic's vision of abjection is frequently communicated through
other impossible objects.
A p o ca l y p s e a n d S acr i f i ce
Although better known for their disregard of taboo, apocalyptically
orientated movements also frequently envisage the discontinuation
of sacrifice. This is true of the two most apocalyptically orientated
world religions , Zoroastrianism and Christianity. In the case of
Zoroastrianism, the first faith to assign a definite redemptive con­
clusion to human history, the coupling of eschatology and an
anti-sacrificial rhetoric seems to have been present at the begin­
ning. 78 In the Gathas, the seventeen hymns in the Avesta composed by
Zoroaster himself, the prophet envisages a "final turning point of
existence", a judgment which will "bring to realization the most
just actions for the deceitful as well as for the truthful man". 79 Even
the later Zoroastrian idea that all will have to pass through a molten
river is adumbrated by Zoroaster as "The satisfaction which Thou
shalt give to both factions through Thy pure fire and the molten
iron . . . in order to destroy the deceitful and to save the truthful". 80
Within this framework, it is the cruel treatment and sacrifice of
cattle that mark out the deceitful . Zoroaster devotes an entire hymn
to an ox-soul complaining about its misfortunes ( Yasna 29), and
makes clear that those who demand animal sacrifice saying "The
cow is to be killed (for him) who has been kindling the Haoma [the
sacramental drink made from the sacrificial plant] . . .", will, on this
account, "not be brought to those who rule over life at will in the
House of Good Thinking [heaven]". 8 1
In Christianity, the death of Christ was quickly interpreted as a
74 Se e i ng Th i ng s Hidd e n
sacrifice to end sacrifice. 82 In the Synoptic apocalypses, Jesus himself
implicitly envisages the termination of sacrifice by predicting the
destruction of the Temple, the centre of the sacrificial cult. But
even before this happened, it was recognised that s..;crifice no longer
had a place in the new sect. According to the book of Hebrews , the
crucifixion abolished the former sacrificial system and established a
new covenant in which, as the perfect and final sacrifice had already
been made, no further sacrifices were necessary. Once again, the
end of sacrifice was coupled with impending judgment, and in
Hebrews it is repeatedly emphasised that having ended sacrifice by
offering a once-for-all time sacrifice for sins, Christ is now waiting
to appear a second time, when he will save those who await him and
vanquish his enemies. 8 3
Given the well-established link between the experience of per­
secution and the development of the genre of apocalyptic , it is
possible to argue that the rejection of sacrifice and the development
of apocalyptic are unconnected events independently inspired by
persecution, which simultaneously fosters identification with unde­
serving victims and a desire for an eschatological judgment on the
persecutors . However, the content of apocalyptic strongly suggests
that there is a more direct relationship between the two. Even when
sacrifice is not rejected, its cessation is frequently envisaged as an
eschatological portent. In the Synoptic apocalypses, the destruc­
tion of the temple is used to introduce the catalogue of apocalyptic
woe�, and in Daniel the taking away of the continual burnt offering
is the signal for the beginning of the countdown to the end. 84
Despite his claim to reveal what is hidden at the foundation of the
world, Girard has little to say about apocalyptic literature.
Nevertheless there are obvious parallels between what he terms a
mimetic crisis and what apocalyptic texts depict as an eschatological
crisis. Not only do some of Girard's cited descriptions of mimetic
Apocalypse 75
crisis employ the imagery of Christian apocalyptic, but even where
the accounts are independent (as when he draws examples from
classical mythology) there are the same inexplicable portents and
plagues, and the constant mimetic violence of twinned antagonists ­
nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom , Romulus against
Remus, Eteocles against Polynices. As Ethiopic Enoch describes it:
In those days in one place fathers and sons will strike one
another, and brothers will together fall in death until their
blood flows as if it were a stream. For a man will not in mercy
withhold his hand from his sons, nor from his son's sons , in
order to kill them, and the sinner will not withhold his hand
from his honoured brother, from dawn until the sun sets they
will kill one another. 8 5
According to Girard, a mimetic crisis is resolved by the scapegoat
mechanism. Thus, in Euripides' Phoenician Women, Oedipus is forced
to leave Thebes; and in Livy, Remus is struck down in turba (which
Girard interprets as a collective murder) and Romulus disappears in
a cloud (or gets ripped to pieces by the senators - another collective
murder) before being proclaimed a god. 8 6 But in apocalyptic, men
appear rather than disappear in the douds, and the resolution of the
crisis seems to have an inverted form : not the exclusion of an indi­
vidual by the collectivity, but the inclusion (or reindusion) of a
concealed or celestial individual whose authority is imposed on the
world. This escatological figure is frequently one who, in Girard's
theory, would be counted as a scapegoat. In the apocryphal
Testament of Abraham, the first judgment is performed by Abel, 8 7
whose murder preceded the building of the first city88 and who,
according to Luke, was the first of those whose blood "was shed
from the foundation of the world"; 8 9 in the Similitudes of Enoch, the
76 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
"Son of Man" who judges the world has been "hidden from the
beginning"90 and is identified with Enoch, the patriarch whose mys­
terious disappearance from earth (for Girard, a tell-tale sign of a
scapegoat) is recorded in Genesis and in Jubilees (where he is said to
have been transported to Eden) ;91 in a fragmentary document from
Cave 11 at Qumran, it is Melchizedek, another Old Testament figure
famous for his disappearing act (according to 2 Enoch he disap­
peared first as a child when, like Enoch in the book of Jubilees, he
was whisked away to Eden to avoid being murdered) ,9 2 who exe­
cutes the judgment.93 The structure is perhaps most obvious in the
book of Revelation, in which it is "the Lamb slain from the founda­
tion of the world" who opens the seven seals and receives the
kingdom of God. 94
In the biblical and apocryphal apocalypses, what is revealed at the
end of the world frequently turns out to be what was hidden at its
foundation. It is not the obvious heroic figures of the patriarchal age
who return as eschatological judges, but those whose memory has
all but vanished - the missing and the sacrificed. However, the pat­
tern is by no means confined to the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The
Mansren myth in New Guinea, which predated the arrival of
Christian missionaries but subsequently inspired a sequence of mil­
lenarian agitations, describes how an individual excluded from his
community (by the distinctively Melanesian strategy of being aban­
doned when everyone else moved to a new island) would eventually
return and inaugurate a golden age. 95 And in the nineteenth-century
Tuka movement in Fiji, elements of the Fijian creation story were
combined with biblical elements to create the myth of the twins,
Nathirikaumoli and Nakausambaria, who, having been forced to sail
into exile, would soon return with the ancestors to drive out the
Europeans. 96
The dynamic suggested by these examples recalls Girard's
Apocalypse 77
scapegoat mechanism both in the undifferentiated violence of the
crisis and in the curious similarities between primordial victims on
the one hand, and eschatological saviours on the other. The crucial
difference, of course, is that whereas in sacrifice the mimetic crisis
is resolved through the exclusion of a symbol of undifferentiation, in
apocalyptic the crisis is ended by its return.
A p ocaly p t i c
Because there are many contexts in which apocalyptic requires or
envisages the abandonment of sacrifice and/ or taboo, it is necessary
to ask why there seems to be this inverse relationship. Apocalyptic,
taboo and sacrifice all appear to be concerned with the opposition
between undifferentiation and difference, mixture and separation,
chaos and cosmos, and all explore the boundary that divides them.
However, the location of that boundary is different in each case. In
sacrifice, the division is something established in the distant past
through killing or banishing the forces of primordial chaos, and
maintained through the symbolic re-enactment of the initial divorce.
In taboo, on the other hand, the undifferentiated is a present and
potent danger that must be constantly and rigorously avoided.
Apocalyptic seems to presuppose that difference is maintained
through one or both of the mechanisms of taboo or sacrifice, but
suggests that rather than being successfully relegated to the past or
excluded from the present, the undifferentiated has been deferred to
the future from where it will be reincorporated into the present.
Understood in this way, the ending of sacrifice, the spread of poilu­
tion and the return of the undifferentiated are all expressions of the
same thing. If what is not sacrificed is taboo, and what is taboo is not
sacrificed, the end of sacrifice is naturally co-extensive with the
78 Seeing Things Hidden
spread of pollution . (When everything is polluted nothing can be
sacrificed , and when nothing is sacrificed everything is polluted.)
The negation of sacrifice and taboo therefore naturally converges in
the return of what is undifferentiated, for the reincorporation of the
undifferentiated is not just presaged by the breakdown of sacrifice
and taboo, but is itself that breakdown.
How does this account of apocalyptic relate to primary factors
that are universal aspects of human experience? Since it appears to
be the case that undifferentiation is a universal conceptual possibil­
ity and differentiation a universal social actuality, there must also
universally be social and symbolic processes that regulate the relation
between the two. It does not follow from this that there is any one
universal process by which that relation is maintained, and there is
no reason to suppose that sacrifice, taboo and apocalyptic, either
singly or in combination, constitute such a universal. But if there are
always mechanisms through which the balance between difference
and undifferentiation is regulated, it seems probable that sacrifice
and/ or taboo sometimes perform this function, and that the process
may be imaginatively reversed so that what was excluded is rein­
corporated. On this view, apocalyptic is not so much an inversion of
a universal process as an inversion of processes that are themselves
particular manifestations of the universal need to regulate undiffer­
entiation within differential societies.
In so far as apocalyptic is the revelation of undifferentiation, it
reveals not a victory for one side of a binary opposition, but a tran­
scendence of the polarity. Apocalyptic does not merely invert the
processes embodied in taboo or sacrifice, it also differs from these
practices in that it positively welcomes the intrusion of chaos into
the existing cosmos. As sacrifice and taboo are both mechanisms
devoted to keeping chaos at bay, apocalyptic not only assumes that
they will cease as part of the future intrusion of the undifferentiated,
Apocalypse 79
but may actually dispense with them. There is thus no dichotomy
between a series of unwelcome apocalyptic woes and the welcome
return of an eschatological figure who ends them . The two events
are of essentially the same kind, so, in Revelation, it is not just the
demonic powers that are described as Mischwesen but also the escha­
tological saviour, a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes that stands
on a throne surrounded by a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle, all with
six wings and covered in eyes. Yeats seems instinctively to have
grasped the point: in "The Second Coming", the "rough beast"
slouching towards Bethlehem to be born is another Mischwesen, a
sphinx or manticore, "A shape with lion body and the head of a
man" . 97
Apocalyptic not only describes the reinclusion of the undifferen­
tiated into a pre-existing binary system, it may also go on to reveal
a new system, a new millennium that operates on principles differ­
ent from those of the old. Apocalyptic texts often describe a process
in which undifferentiated chaos is the prelude to a new order: but
where sacrifice is cyclical and conservative � the original binary
oppositions can be repeatedly restored by the re-enacted exclusion
of the undifferentiated element � apocalyptic is dialectical and rev­
olutionary. It is not the oppositions dissolved in the period of
undifferentiation that are re-established , but a new set. The undif­
ferentiated returns, that which was excluded is reincluded, and a
new order is created, less exclusive than that which previously
existed. 9 8
This new order may involve a return to a state prior to binary
opposition. In the Syriac Baruch, after the twelve periods of increas­
ing chaos are followed by the simultaneous appearance of the
messianic kingdom and the primal chaos monsters : "The Messiah
shall then begin to be revealed. And Behemoth shall appear from his
place and Leviathan shall ascend from the sea.'>99 There is then a time
80 S e e i n g T h i n g s H i d d en
of plenty in which the earth yields its fruits ten-thousandfold
and, contrary to all dietary taboos, the monsters serve as food
for those in the messianic kingdom. The implicit idea of a return
to primordial undifferentiation is clear too in Daniel 2 , where
Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a statue made of a differentiated
sequence of metals - gold, silver, bronze, iron - and terminating in
feet of mingled iron and clay. The statue is then smashed, not by one
or the other of the substances mixed in the feet, nor by one of the
other metals in the statue, but by a stone hewn from a mountain
which then grows to fill the entire earth. It is thus not one or
another of the differentiated elements that succeeds the time of
mixture but the pre-differential , a stone in which iron and clay (and
all the other metals) have not been separated. The new world of
Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic is not a world of good rather than evil,
but a world prior to that division; it is the original Garden of Eden,
from which Adam and Eve were expelled when they ate from the
tree of knowledge and discovered difference.
This account of apocalyptic as the return of the undifferentiated
might suggest that it conforms to the cyclical pattern of unity lost
and unity regained described by M . H . Abrams . According to
Abrams, this paradigm - first formulated by Plotinus, and trans­
mitted through the Neoplatonic and Hermetic traditions to the
Romantic generation - involved "a primal unity and goodness, an
emanation into multiplicity which is ipsofacto a lapse into evil and
1 00 This model IS .
suffering, and a return to unity and goodness" . . m
some respects similar to the account of apocalyptic given above,
and at various points in western intellectual history the Neoplatonic
vision has become fused with aspects of Judaeo-Christian apocalyp­
tic; but there are also significant dissimilarities. The apocalyptic
sequence of difference followed by undifferentiation differs from the
Neoplatonic model of unity/fragmention/reunion in that (i) the
Apocalypse 81
present age is conceived in terms of differentiation rather than frag­
mentation, with the corollary that the future involves not a reunion
of scattered fragments, but the elision of difference; and (ii) the
return of undifferentiation is thus necessarily the reincorporation of
something excluded by difference rather than the re-formation of a
lost unity.
The distinction between the Neoplatonic reunion of contraries
and the apocalyptic reincorporation of contradiction or undifferen­
tiation can be seen in the third book of Robert Musil's The Man
without @alities, "Into the Millennium", where, with the help of
the alchemical idea of incestuous union, the Neoplatonic myth is
given a distinctly apocalyptic twist. After the death of their father,
Agathe and her brother Ulrich, who are not twins and have always
lived separately, agree to set up house together, and Ulrich elo­
quently pictures their new life in terms of apocalyptic
undifferentiation:
In past ages people have tried to imagine such a life upon
earth: that's the Millennium, the Kingdom of a Thousand
Years, formed in our own image and yet not among any of the
kingdoms that we know. Well that's the way we'll live ! We
shall cast off all egoism, we shall not accumulate possessions or
knowledge or lovers or friends or principles, not even our­
selves. Accordingly our spirit will open up, becoming fluid in
relation to man and beast, opening out till we're no longer
ourselves and maintain ourselves solely by being interwoven
with the whole world.
101
Later, installed in the same house, and with their relationship
teetering precariously on the brink of incest, Agathe reminds Ulrich
of the Platonic myth (recounted by Aristophanes in the Symposium)
-

82 Se e ing Th ing s H i d d en Apocalypse 83

of love as the search of each half of an originally bisexual being for more inclusive than Rowland's account o f apocalyptic a s the super­

its counterpart . When Ulrich points out that in practice this proves natural disclosure of heavenly secrets in that it fits the major

impossible, Agathe replies that brothers and sisters must at least be canonical and apocryphal apocalypses of the Judaeo-Christian tradi­

halfway there, and Ulrich suggests that twins would fit the pattern tion while accommodating several texts - the Synoptic apocalypses,
1 2
still better. 0 Agreeing that being brother and sister is insufficient, the Assumption of Moses and some of the Sibylline Oracles - that
. , 10 3 10r,
c
Rowland is forced to discount. However, unlike Rowland , it
.
thev declare themse lves not JUSt .
twms, but "s·1amese twins ,

as lllrich observes , "a Siamese Sister, who's neither me nor herself, excludes New Testament visions of the open heaven - such as those

but just as much me as herself, is clearly the only point where every­ which occur at Jesus's baptism in Mark, and at the stoning of
0 Stephen in Acts - unless, as is the case wjth Peter's vision in Acts 1 0 ,
thing intersects". 1 4
The culmination of Musil's immense novel in the possibly inces­ their content requires their inclusion. But while the hypothesis sug­

tuous union of two self-defined twins whose relationship has been gests that the features highlighted by Rowland are not the essential

concealed for the preceding thousand pages, is not only an unusually ones, it may also offer a way of explaining why they occur in so many

perspicuous manifestation of the apocalyptic pattern of the trans­ apocalyptic texts. If apocalyptic is a revelation of the contradiction

gressive reinclusion of excluded undifferentiation, but, given that and indeterminacy excluded at the foundation of the world, then

Agathe and Ulrich discuss the Platonic precedents for their union, a what is revealed may require a particular form of revelation. In soci­

useful example of the way in which apocalyptic undifferentiation dif­ eties where bivalence is assumed to be natural, the undifferentiated

fers from the straightforward reunion of separated halves described is inaccessible to normal patterns of thought, so access can be gained

in the Symposium and the Neoplatonic tradition. What Musil calls only by means that circumvent the accepted modes of cognition.
10
"the realm of the Siamese Twins and the Millennium" 5 is formed, Conversely, in these circumstances any supernatural revelation of

not from the reunion of what once was joined, but from the fusion hidden secrets is liable to disclose a world of contradictions and

of two lives that had always been separate and whose union is for­ indeterminacies. The more strictly binarity is maintained, the more

bidden. contradictions and indeterminacies there are to disclose - hence

perhaps apocalyptic's elective affmity with dualism.
Describing apocalyptic as the revelation of excluded undifferen­

R ev elati o n a n d E sch atology tiation provides a definition that is not forced to include any form of
arcane revelation irrespective of content, without being committed

The account of apocalyptic outlined above is articulated in terms to the view that all endings are to some degree apocalyptic. The

quite foreign to the customary definitions of the genre; nevertheless, latter position (associated with Frank Kermode) , in which even " Tick

it is able to serve the same function, for it is applicable to the same is a humble genesis, [and] tack a feeble apocalypse", 1 06 suggests that

texts and is able to account for just those aspects of apocalyptic that there may be an apocalypse in every ending. But we just do not think

others have found to be its characteristic features. It is, for example, of endings that way: there is nothing recognisably apocalyptic about
-

84 Seeing Things Hidden

Apocalypse 85

the end of a lecture, or the end of a car journey, or even the end of
(as I shall try to show i n chapter 4) apocalyptic may even take o n an
life, for nothing out of the ordinary takes place or is revealed by the
anti -eschatological character.
ending itself. And nor do we expect it to be, for we are starting and
stopping all the time. In fiction, endings are often associated with the
disclosure of withheld information or the resolution of a plot. But " A n i m al A p o c aly p se"
those fictional plots in which the ending (and the relationship of
events and characters to that ending) is of paramount importance are
In order to see how the theoretical account of apocalyptic outlined
those that have least in common with apocalyptic texts. For example,
above might inform our understanding of apocalyptic texts, I shall
in detective fiction and romance (in which the shadow of the ending
examine two in more detail. Both are liable (for different reasons) to
falls on the first page and never lifts until we actually read to the
strike the reader as slightly bizarre, but in this respect they are rep­
end) , the ambiguities inherent in the plot are gradually reduced until
resentative of the apocalyptic genre as a whole. The first of these,
we discover who is going to marry the heroine or who the guilty
the so-called "Animal Apocalypse", comprises chapters 85-90 of
party really is. In these genres, endings resolve the unbearable uncer­
the book known as 1 Enoch or, by virtue of the fact that much of it
tainty that has earlier been created by the narrative. But apocalyptic
has been preserved only in Ethiopic, Ethiopic Enoch. Although it
texts describe a world that grows ever more confusing and may cul­
may perhaps contain older material, Enoch is a pseudonymous work
minate in a new world that is quite unlike the old. There may be
probably written in the second century BCE . It can be subdivided
apocalyptic fictions, but they are rarely found in novels in which the
into five parts, one of which, the "Book of Dreams" (chapters
reader waits expectantly for the end.
83-90), recounts two visions. The first is a very brief revelation of
However, if apocalyptic is the revelation of the contradiction and
eschatological chaos ("I saw how the earth was swallowed up in a
indeterminacy at the limit of the existing order through the imagi­
great abyss, and mountains suspended on mountains, and hills sank
native reversal of the processes that have excluded them, it is
down upon hills . . ."; 1 07 the second, the "Animal Apocalypse", is
inevitably concerned with the limits of our world, and, as such,
much longer and gets its name from the fact that it uses animals to
frequently has eschatological implications. Indeed, the two major
represent all those involved in the history of lsrael from the begin­
canonical apocalypses, Daniel and the book of Revelation, are both
ning of the world to the last judgment.
explicitly eschatological, and Christian apocalyptic has therefore
In abbreviated outline, the story goes as follows. Enoch falls into
been allied with eschatology from the beginning. But in so far as
a vision on his bed and sees a white bull emerge from the earth; a
eschatology is concerned with a longitudinal or durational experi­
heifer follows, and together they produce two calves, one black and
ence of closure, the eschatological content of apocalypse is variable,
one red. The black bullock strikes the red one and it disappears, but
and even though (as I shall argue in chapter 3) the idea of a complete
the heifer now produces another calf who is white, followed by
end to time may be necessarily contradictory and so apocalyptic, an
further black calves. The white calf grows up and sires further white
anticipated ending or eschatology is not of itself an apocalypse, and
cattle. Stars fall from heaven, mixing up the cattle and mating with
86 Seeing Things H i d d e n
the black bulls to produce elephants , camels and asses, which
promptly attack the bulls and one another. However, all are drowned
in a flood with the exception of one white bull and his offspring -
one white, one red "as blood", one black. The three young bulls now
father wild animals and birds - lions, tigers, wolves, dogs, hyenas,
wild boars, foxes, badgers , pigs, falcons , vultures, kites, eagles and
ravens. But they also produce a white bull that fathers a wild ass and
another white bull , which, in turn, begets a black wild boar and a
white sheep, both of which go on to reproduce their own species.
The sheep are preyed upon by the other animals, but eventually
build a house and a tower for their owner and spread a full table
before him. They then become blind and are again assaulted by the
other animals who destroy the house. When the house and tower are
rebuilt, the table has bread that is unclean and not pure. The sheep
are then preyed upon by birds, but the owner intervenes and the
sheep defeat their enemies. The owner now constructs a new house,
without a tower, and all the sheep and other animals gather there. A
white bull is born, and then all the other species are transformed
into white bulls as well, although the first white bull is differentiated
by having big black horns. Enoch wakes up.
This laborious allegory includes many identifiable individuals and
events from Israel's history which need not concern us . 1 08 What is of
interest is that part of the apocalypse which deals with the future, and
the way in which it reuses the codes that have been operating in the
rest of the story. The three purely eschatological events are i) the con­
struction of a house without a tower and table; ii) the transformation
of the sheep and all the other animals into white bulls; iii) the birth of
a white bull who has black horns. The three obvious questions are :
Why does the house not have a tower? Why do all the animals
become white bulls? And why does one of them have big black horns?
It is clear from the narrative that the house represents Jerusalem;
A po calypse 87
the tower, the temple, and the table the sacrificial cult. The
sequence in the development of the image is therefore:
1) Jerusalem + temple + sacrifice
2) Jerusalem + temple + pollution
3) Jerusalem
What we have is another example of the previously observed apoc­
alyptic sequence in which sacrifice is replaced by pollution, and
then pollution superseded without a return to the sacrificial system
that previously kept pollution at bay. The development of the
imagery of clean and unclean, although not precisely coterminous,
follows a similar pattern. At the beginning of the first and second
ages there are only clean animals (i . e . those suitable for sacrifice);
unclean animals then proliferate and dominate the clean ones; but at
the end of the age there are only clean animals once more. There is
thus the sequence :
1) clean animals
2) clean and unclean animals
3) clean animals
There is clearly a degree of homology between the two sequences in
that the pollution of the temple is equivalent to the dominance of
unclean animals; however, this does not help us to explain why,
when pollution is eliminated and there are only clean animals once
more, there is no return to sacrifice. To interpret this aspect of the
apocalypse, it is necessary to examine the sequence of colours used
to describe the clean animals. White, black and red are the colours
at the beginning of the first two ages and, although red soon
disappears in each case, these three colours constitute the basic code
 A po calypse 89
88 S e e i ng T h i ng s H i d d e n

i.e. qualities and phenomena represented by the colour black.

used in the narrative. No previous example of this triad exists within
The other is moral neutrality, lack of rules, chaos, non-struc­
the Jewish tradition, so to appreciate its significance it is helpful to
ture, magic power, emotionality etc. , i.e. qualities or
consider it in a wider context.
phenomena represented by the colour red. 1 1 1

Within the "Animal Apocalypse", it is clear that a very similar sort

B lack, W h i te, R ed
of colour symbolism is at work. White is the colour of the first bull
and of his virtuous descendants in every age, whether bulls or sheep,
In an exhaustive comparative study of colour terminology, Berlin
and no unclean animal is ever described as white . Black is the colour
and Kay demonstrated that no society has more than eleven basic
of Cain, the first murderer, and of another rejected first-born son,
colour terms, and that these terms always evolve in the same
Esau (the black boar, an unclean beast), the brother of Jacob (the
sequence. In a language with only two terms, the terms will be
first white sheep). Red occurs only twice, always as part of the triad
black and white; in a language with three terms, they will be black,
of white-red-black, and in each case it disappears, while the oppo­
white and red; languages with more than three terms will always
sition between white and black is perpetuated. Abel (red) disappears
include black, white and red, along with whatever additional terms
from the triad of Adam (white) and Cain (black) to be replaced by
occur in the sequence. 1 09 The finding that black, white and red are
Seth (white). Red reappears after the flood when one son of Noah is
the three most basic terms in all colour vocabularies helps to explain
why these three colours are, as had long been recognised, of funda­ "red as blood", but the colour is not perpetuated whereas white
and black continue in the lines of Jacob and Esau respectively. What
mental symbolic significance in numerous societies. The precise
appears to be happening in each case is that red is excluded as part
symbolic function of each colour may vary from one society to
of the dynamic by which the binary differentiation of white and
another; however, given that the opposition between white and
black is established.
black invariably precedes the discrimination of red, it is not sur­
So is the disappearing red a founding sacrifice, a symbol of undif­
prising to discover that fundamental binary oppositions are usually
ferentiation coded in the colour of undifferentiation? Abel is, of
coded as black and white. Red, a colour that falls somewhere
course, one of the paradigmatic scapegoats of Girardian theory, but
between white and black in terms of brightness, is thus frequently
there is additional evidence to suggest that in this case the colour red
used to symbolise not the polar oppositions themselves but transi­
is associated with scapegoating. Red is identified with blood, and in
tions, ambiguities or mixtures. 1 1° For example, Jacobson- Widding's
the Old Testament blood was considered to be both sacred and
study of red, white and black amongst the peoples of the Lower
taboo. Redness could therefore be associated "either with cleansing
Congo found that white symbolised good and order, and was
rituals or the heinous crime of murder". 1 1 2 Many commentators
opposed to two enemies of social order:
have suggested that there may be a link between the red bullock of
Enoch and the red heifer of Numbers 1 9 . 1 1 3 The red heifer is the
One is disorder in terms of disobedience, evil acts, envy etc.,
90 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
only animal in the Old Testament sacrificial system to be specified by
colour, 1 14 and it is the only animal whose sacrifice results in ritual
uncleanness for those involved - a state which, as the rabbis com­
mented, was otherwise produced by the expulsion of the scapegoat
and the mingling of kinds. 1 1 5 It was said of the original red heifer
sacrificed by Moses that it had been divinely stored away for use in
the time to come. 1 1 6 And like other such disappearing figures, the
red heifer became the focus of eschatological speculation. According
to one reading of the Mishnah, the tenth red heifer would be sup­
plied by the messiah himself, 1 1 7 and so in recent years
ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups in Israel have been working to pro­
duce a suitable beast with the help of a Pentecostal cattle breeder
from Texas who hopes to hasten the Second Coming. 1 1 8
The legends surrounding the red heifer may help us to make sense
of what happens in the "Animal Apocalypse". The elimination of red
from the original triad of colours suggests the exclusion of undiffer­
entiation in order to establish difference, but what about the end of
the narrative where all the animals become white, except the white
bull with black horns? In the period prior to the eschaton there are a
large number of animal species whose colours, although not speci­
fied, are clearly not restricted to pure white and pure black. So
although undifferentiation is primarily symbolised through the dom­
inance of unclean animals, it is also implicitly a time of mixed colour.
In the eschaton that mixture comes to an end, but it is not replaced,
as it was at the time of the flood, by the primal triad of white-red­
black from which red disappears. Instead, the new leader is not white
but white-and-black, and the other bulls are all white rather than
white or black. Commentators have been puzzled by the white bull
with black horns: 1 1 9 some see him as a new Adam or as one of the
Sethite line of white bulls, 1 2 0 others argue that the black horns indi­
cate descent from Ham, the (black) son of Noah . 1 2 1 But analysis in
Apocalypse 91
terms of the logic of colour symbolism points to the one alternative
that has not been explored. As both white and black, the eschato­
logical bull reincarnates the undifferentiation eliminated by the
disappearance of the original red bull. Although not red, and thus not
directly identifiable as Abel himself, the white-and-black bull is his
eschatological counterpart, a being that has an indeterminate identity
within the binary opposition of black and white. Like Abel, and the
other disappearing patriarchs of the antediluvian world who reappear
in Jewish apocalyptic, the white-and-black bull may be an eschato­
logical manifestation of that which was hidden at the beginning.
However, although the white-and-black bull is an indeterminate
entity under the old system of classification, in the new age, where
there are only white bulls , he is not a contradiction that exists
between polarities but an image of ambiguity opposed to an unam­
biguous alternative. From binary opposition that excludes
ambiguity, we have moved to a form of opposition in which ambi­
guity includes that which is differentiated from it, and one side of the
duality is uninstantiated except within the ambiguity.
What then has happened in the "Animal Apocalypse"? The narra­
tive of Israelite history that takes up the bulk of the book is not the
author's invention; all he does is code that history and then extend
the narrative to its eschatological conclusion through the manipula­
tion of the codes he has already established. The colour coding of
Israelite history
1) white black (red)
2) unspecified (mixed) colours
3) white-and-black and white
can be seen to embody the same pattern as the temple imagery,
thereby producing the sequence:
92 Seeing Things Hidden A po calypse 93

1) difference founded on sacrifice But what exactly is it that is contagiously apocalyptic about the apoc­

2) undifferentiation and pollution alypse? Although Derrida doubts that there is "just one fundamental
3) ambiguity and uniformity scene, one great paradigm" according to which apocalyptic strategies
regulate themselves, he toys with the possibility that there might be

What the "Animal Apocalypse" appears to describe is therefore the a unified apocalyptic tone, distinct "from all articulated discursive

originary exclusion of undifferentiation followed by a return of content". This tone is revelatory of "some unveiling in process" :

undifferentiation culminating in a new order in which undifferenti­ "The end is soon, it is imminent, signifies the tone. I see it, I know

ation is not excluded but central. it, I tell you, now you know, come." 1 26
According to Derrida, the apocalyptic tone has a primarily
demonstrative function, and so although it may serve to direct atten­

P lat o 's P h a r m acy tion to what is revealed, it may also designate not what is
announced, but rather the announcement itself, the act of revela­

Derrida acknowledges that his writing has sometimes explored tion. This function is performed at the most minimal level by the

apocalyptic themes and taken on what he refers to as "an apocalyp­ apocalyptic exhortation, "Come", which appeals "to the advent of

tic tone". 1 22 Yet the nature of the relationship between what in the apocalyptic in general no longer lets itself be contained

deconstruction and apocalyptic remains problematic. Amongst simply by philosophy, metaphysics, onto-eschato-theology, and by all

Derrida's interpreters, Christopher Norris argues that Derrida's the readings they have proposed of the apocalyptic". The "Come" sig­

texts are not themelves "a species of apocalyptic utterance" and that nals "an apocalypse without apocalypse, an apocalypse without

it would be wrong to read them as "irrationalist doomsday-talk". 1 23 vision, without truth, without revelation . . . without sender or

There is, he suggests, merely "an elective affinity between the pro­ decidable addressee, without last judgment, without any other

ject of deconstruction and the ' apocalyptic tone"' in that both eschatology than the tone of the ' Come' ".127

"suspend or problematize everything pertaining to the ground-rules But is Derrida's apocalypticism really only a tone, an inflection

of communicative reason". 1 24 Derrida himself sidles a little closer: that can be adopted or discarded at will? If it were, there seems little
reason why Derrida should identify with it so strongly as to trans­

I was aware of speaking of discourses on the end rather than form Kant's pamphlet, Von einem neuerdings erhobenen Vornehmen ton in
announcing the end, that I intended to analyse a genre rather der Philosophie, into a covert attack on a genre to which it makes no
than practice it, and even when I would practice it, to do so reference whatsoever. Why not respond with an essay on the notion

only with this ironic genre clause wherein I tried to show that of an "elevated tone" or, as the French translator of Kant calls it, "un

this clause never belonged to the genre itself; nevertheless ... ton grand seigneur"? The starting point for Derrida's meditations on

all language on apocalypse is also apocalyptic and cannot be the apocalyptic tone is Andre Chouraqui's identification of the Greek

excluded from its object.1 25 apokalupto with the Hebrew gala. The accords between the two
94 Seeing Things Hidden
words suggest "the idea of laying bare [mise a nu], of specifically
apocalyptic unveiling, of the disclosure that lets be seen what to
then remained enveloped, secluded, held back", 1 2 8 and Derrida
quotes several examples to indicate that the apocalyptic movement,
"the gesture of denuding or of affording sight", often has "a terrify­
ing and sacred gravity", whether it uncovers the glory ofYHWH, or,
as in the Levitical prohibitions against incest, the abject nakedness of
a relative. 1 29
Despite using the accords between apokalupto and gala to define
apocalyptic, Derrida promptly drops them, "to let them resonate
all alone". In consequence, the terrifying apocalyptic gesture of
unveiling what is otherwise taboo is replaced with something less
alarming, an inflection that merely announces its announcement
of itself. "Come" may reveal itself, but in doing so it does not
reveal anything that is otherwise hidden. In Derrida's text what
could be taken as an invitation to see the terrible and die becomes
"an apocalypse without vision". Is it possible that this cautious step
backwards creates the space Derrida wants to open up between his
own apocalyptic writings and those of other exponents of the genre?
If so, how much room does he have for manoeuvre?
Derrida's proximity to more traditional forms of apocalyptic
writing can be seen in "Plato's Pharmacy", an early piece from which
the later "apocalyptic tonings" are absent. 1 3 0 In this long essay,
Derrida offers a reading of Plato's account of writing in the Phaedrus,
and of an Egyptian myth about the origin of writing recounted by
Socrates. The story goes like this. The god Theuth, who lived in the
region of Naucratis, had invented all sorts of things - numbers,
mathematics, astronomy, writing - so he went to Thamus, the king
of all Egypt, and revealed his inventions in order that they might
benefit the Egyptians in general. Thamus asked Theuth what his
inventions might be used for, and gave his opinion of their merits.
A p o c a ly p s e 95
When asked about writing, Theuth replied, "Here, 0 king, is a
branch of learning that will make the people of Egypt wiser and
improve their memories; my discovery provides a recipe (phar­
makon) for memory and wisdom." But the king responded by saying
that what Theuth claimed for writing would be "the very opposite of
its true effect"; writing would make people forgetful, with the result
that they would no longer rely on their own memories but on exter­
nal marks. 1 3 1
In Greek, the word pharmakon can refer to both beneficial and
harmful prescriptions, to medicine and to poison. So when the king
suggests that the effect of the pharmakon may be the opposite of
what Theuth describes, and that writing may worsen rather than
remedy the situation, 1 3 2 he is, Derrida suggests, implicitly playing
upon the ambiguity of the word. In Plato, the word pharmakon fre­
quently carries this ambivalence: in the Protagoras, the pharmaka are
listed amongst those things that can be both good and bad; in the
Philebus, there is discussion of remedies, like relieving an itch by rub­
bing, in which pain and pleasure are mixed; in the Timaeus, it is
suggested that medicines only aggravate the diseases they supposedly
subdue. Derrida therefore argues that "the textual centre-stage of
the word pharmakon, even while it means remedy, cites, re-cites, and
makes legible that which in the same word signifies, in another spot
and on a different level of the stage, poison" . 1 3 3 In this situation, the
choice of only one of these meanings by the translator has the effect
of neutralising the citational play, producing on the pharmakon "an
1Ject rfanalysis that violently destroys it" by reducing it to one of its
elements. 1 34
However, it is not only the translators who effect this rejection.
In the Phaedrus, Plato departs from his usual practice of allowing the
pharmakon its ambiguity by endorsing Thamus's simple reversal of
Theuth's estimation of writing. In this way, Derrida argues, Plato too
96 Seeing Things Hidden
attempts to master the ambiguity of the pharmakon: "to dominate by
inserting its definition into simple, clear-cut oppositions: good and
1
c l se, essence and appearance" . 3 5
eVI"l , ms1
. "d e and outsi"d e, true and 1a
In order for these contrary values to be opposed, "each of the terms
must be simply external to the other", but, as Derrida points out, the
pharmakon contains both, and so its "nonidentity-with-itself" always
allows it to be turned against itself. 1 3 6
As Derrida emphasises, the pharmakon cannot be included within
binary opposition and yet remains within it, "resisting and disor­
ganising it,without ever constituting a third term". 1 37 For this reason,
it may be said to perform within Plato's text the function of the phar­
makos within Athenian society. 1 38 Like the pharmakos, who was
maintained at public expense in order to be driven from the city as
a scapegoat in the event of some disaster like plague or famine, 1 39
the ambiguous pharmakon inhabits the text precisely in order to be
violently expelled from it. So just as the pharmakos is beneficial in so
far as his expulsion is curative and harmful in so far as he represents
the powers of evil, the pharmakon is both good and bad, both pres­
ent and absent. And yet, for all his weakness for pharmaceutical
metaphors (Socrates himself is elsewhere called a pharmakeus - a
word which, like pharmakos, means wizard or magician) , Plato never
actually uses the word pharmakos. The pharmakos, like the ambivalent
pharmakon, is, Derrida suggests, both a constitutive absence and a
deconstructive presence within the Phaedrus, another coincidentia
oppositorum that ceaselessly unravels within the text . 14{)
Derrida's reading of the pharmakon lpharmakos in the Phaedrus
simultaneously reintroduces the ambivalence of the pharmakon,
shunned both by modern translators and by Plato himself, and
reveals the occult presence of the pharmakos within the text. Thus,
in exactly the same way as an apocalypse takes pre-existing exclu­
sions and then describes their reintegration, "Plato's Pharmacy"
A p o c a ly p s e 97
takes the tabooed ambiguity of the pharmakon and the excluded phar­
makos and reincorporates them into the text. By identifying the
pharmakon with the pharmakos, Derrida makes explicit what is
unstated within his readings of other texts, namely that the unde­
cidable terms he identifies and releases from univalence are those
whose ambiguity has been excluded to preserve binary distinctions,
just as a scapegoat may be sacrificed to maintain the social order. The
end of the taboo on the contradictory meaning of the pharmakon and
the re-emergence of the pharmakos within the text are thus two
aspects of the same deconstructive reading, just as, in apocalyptic,
the spread of pollution and the return of a scapegoated victim are the
point at which the negation of taboo and sacrifice may be said to con­
verge.
From this analysis of "Plato 's Pharmacy", which is, Derrida
acknowledges, a paradigm of his other deconstructive readings, it
would appear that the relationship between deconstruction and
apocalyptic is not just a matter of tone, but of technique. Not only
do both apocalyptic and deconstruction "problematize the ground­
rules of communicative reason", they do so in the same way, by
revealing and reincorporating the undifferentiated into environ­
ments from which it has been excluded as the precondition of
communicative reason and social order. The destabilisation of texts
formed by exclusion and the destabilisation of societies formed by
exclusion are thus both based upon the same simple strategy, the
imaginative reversal of the processes through which bivalence is
maintained . The "apocalyptic tone" which Derrida subsequently
adopts is therefore revelatory of more than itself; it also reveals the
apocalyptic strategy at work within Derrida's texts.
But although Derrida's readings conform to the same strategy as
traditional apocalyptic, they do not necessarily share an eschatol­
ogy. In texts like the "Animal Apocalypse", the reincorporation of
98 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n Apocalypse 99

undifferentiation culminates in a new order in which the undiffer­
entiated is one term of a new, albeit less exclusive form of
opposition . Derrida, who is familiar with the Hegelian form of
this manoeuvre (see below, chapter 3), is specifically concerned to
avoid or at least postpone it, and seeks to explore the interval
between neutralising the binary oppositions of metaphysics and
what he terms "the irruptive emergence of a new ' concept' , that
can no longer be, and never could be, included in the previous
regime". 1 4 1 Derridean apocalyptic is thus forever suspended in the
transitus, it "can be led back neither to a present of simple origin nor
to an eschatological presence"; 1 42 its apocalyptic woes are
interminable.
his testimony and left it as a testimony on earth for all the sons
of men of every generation. 143
The section of Enoch to which Jubilees refers is the "Book of
Dreams", where Enoch tells his son Methuselah that he had his
second vision (the "Animal Apocalypse") before his marriage and his
first "when I learnt the art of writing" . 144 Writing and apocalyptic
are born together: the first apocalyptic vision occurs when Enoch
learns to write; the first book is the "Book of Dreams", the first
inscription, an apocalypse. It can only be a short walk from Enoch's
farm to Plato's pharmacy.

C oda

By transforming Plato's account of the mythological origin of writ­

ing into an apocalyptic revelation, Derrida invests the first written
script with a character he later ascribes to all texts. As if to demon­
strate his hypothesis that apocalyptic is "a transcendental condition of
all discourse", he shows that even Theuth's originary inscription
can be deciphered as an apocalypse, an instant apocalypse that simul­
taneously excluded and reincluded the undifferentiated flux of
meaning. It is not altogether a new idea. According to the book of
Jubilees, an apocryphal Jewish work of the first century BCE, Enoch
"was the first among men born on earth to learn to write and to
acquire knowledge and wisdom":

What was and what will be he saw in a vision in his sleep, just
as it will happen to the sons of men in every generation until
the day of judgement: he saw and knew all of it; and he wrote

3 may see this clearly in the strict "either-or": for instance, The
Hegel F r o m A p o c a ly p s e
t o T o t a li t y
If apocalypse is the reincorporation of excluded contradiction, then
Hegel must be the most apocalyptic of philosophers. He is quite
clear about what he thinks has been excluded by earlier thinkers: "it
has been a fundamental prejudice of hitherto existing logic and of
ordinary imagination that Contradiction is a determination having
less essence and immanence than Identity". ' Pre-Kantian philosophy,
he claims, forced us to assume that "of two opposite assertions . . .
the one must be true and the other false". 2 Whenever presented
with something that appeared to contain opposing attributes,
philosophers focused on only a single attribute and made "a real
effort to obscure and remove all consciousness of the other". 3 If
unable to dismiss one or the other side of a contradiction, they pre­
ferred to disallow the object itself, with the result that rather than
accepting the contradiction, they deprived contradictory things of
existence: if something is contradictory, "the usual inference is . . .
this object is nothing". 4
Hegel presents his own philosophy as a direct reversal of this
strategy:
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 101
Dogmatism consists in the tenacity which draws a hard and fast
line between certain terms and others opposite to them. We
world is either finite or infinite ; but one of these two it must
be. The contrary of this rigidity is the characteristic of all
Speculative truth. There no such inadequate formulae are
allowed, nor can they possibly exhaust it. These formulae
Speculative truth holds in union as a totality, whereas dogma­
tism invests them in their isolation with a title to fixity and
truth. 5
Rather than being content with the one-sided apprehension o f real­
ity purveyed by the half-truths of either I or, Hegel seeks to
reincorporate all those contradictories that have been excluded by
earlier thinkers, to give being to the truths that philosophy had dis­
missed not just as false but as nothing.
According to Hegel, Kant had already taken an important step in
this direction. Unlike earlier philosophers, who supposed that con­
tradictions arose purely by mistake, Kant acknowledged that thought
has a natural tendency to issue in contradictions or antinomies when
trying to comprehend the world. But Kant nevertheless remained
shy of contradictions within the world itself. In the Critique if Pure
Reason, he had shown how opposite propositions could be main­
tained about the same object, and then resolved the antinomies by
arguing that with respect to the world as a thing-in-itself, the oppos­
ing attributes were not contradictories but contraries, neither of
which was applicable because nothing whatsoever can be said about
the world as a thing-in-itself. To Hegel, this move was simply an eva­
sion inspired by "an excess of tenderness for the things of the
world". 6 Instead of being allowed to sully the essence of the world,
the supposed ''blemish" of contradiction was attributed to reason
1 02 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
falling into contradiction by applying the categories inappropriately.
But, Hegel asked, if reason can use no categories except those which
generate the antinomies, how can it confidently be asserted that
they are being used inappropriately and that reason and not the
world is the true site of the contradiction?
Hegel maintained that what the antinomies actually proved
was not the unknowability of the thing-in-itself, but that "every
actual thing involves a co-existence of opposed elements".7 The
antinomy to which Hegel devotes the most sustained attention is
that involving the finite and the infinite. In order to appreciate its
distinctively apocalyptic form , and its role in the displacement of
Kant's anti-apocalyptic teleology, it is necessary to rehearse the
argument in some detail.
F inite I I nfinite
Hegel's definition of the finite is relatively straightforward:
The nominal explanation of calling a thing finite is that it has an
end, that it exists up to a certain point only, where it comes
into contact with, and is limited by its other. The finite there­
fore subsists in reference to its other, which is its negation and
presents itself as its limit. 8
If it is supposed that "between finite and infinite no peace and no
union are possible, [and] that finite is absolutely opposed to infi­
nite",9 it would seem to follow that "In opposition to the Finite, the
sphere of existent determinateness, of realities, there stands the
Infinite, the indeterminate void, the beyond of the Finite." 1 0
However, as Hegel is quick to point out, defining the finite as that
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 03
which is limited and the infinite as that which is unlimited under­
mines the claim that the finite and the infinite are mutually
exclusive; for if the finite excludes the infinite, then the infinite too
has a limit, with the consequence that it is, by definition, not infinite
but finite. So, rather than there being an opposition between the
determinate and the indeterminate, "there are two determinate­
nesses . . . two worlds, the finite and the infinite, which being
related the infinite is but the limit of the finite, and thus is merely
11
an infinite itself determinate and finite".
As Hegel makes clear, his account of the problems involved in
trying to separate the finite from the infinite is a direct response to
Kant's opposition of the two concepts. In the First Antinomy, Kant
had defined infinity as that which can never be completed by suc­
cessive synthesis of all the finite parts it contains, and then proved
both that the world has a beginning in space and time and that it is
infinite in space and time. 1 2 According to Hegel, Kant's mistake
was to create a false antithesis on the basis of an inherently contra­
dictory definition. When Kant argued that the world must have a
beginning in time (since if it did not, then any given moment would
be preceded by an infinity of events which would, by definition, not
be an infinite series, since it would already have been completed)
and, on the contrary, that it must be infinitely old (since if it had a
beginning in time, it would be preceded by empty time, which
could not, being empty, contain anything that would constitute a
condition of the world's beginning) , he was doing no more than
asserting that the border between the finite and the infinite must
always be crossed - a belief already presupposed by his definition of
the infinite as an uncompletable series of finite steps.
In opposition to Kant, Hegel argued that infinity was so pro­
foundly contradictory that analysing it in terms of a series in which
the infinite perpetually oversteps the limit of the finite was actually
1 04 Seeing Things Hidden
to presuppose too dear a division between finite and infinite. Calling
the infinity generated by this means a false or bad infinity, Hegel
claimed that true infinity was not, like the false infinite, the negation
of the finite but rather the sublation of the finite and the false infi­
nite. 1 3 Rather than being a relation between opposites in which the
finite becomes infinite alternately with the infinite becoming finite,
the true infinite is the simultaneous unity of finite becoming infinite
and the infinite becoming finite. The true infinite "consists in being
at home with itself in its other"14 and so describes a circle which,
unlike the endless straight line of false infinity, does not progress by
negating its other but rather by negating itself.
Hegel's account of the true infinite is neither very full nor very
dear, but the concept is thrown into relief by the repeated attacks
upon the Kantian idea of infinite progress. According to Hegel, this
progress takes place whenever, as in the case of the finite and the infi­
nite, "relative determinations are forced into opposition, so that,
while they are in indissoluble unity, each yet has an independent exis­
tence as opposed to the other ascribed to it". 1 5 Where the finite and
the infinite are so conceived, and the infinite is defmed as that which
is bounded by the finite, each transition to the infinite will itself nec­
essarily be finite, so progress to infinity can only take place through a
sequence of finite steps, beyond each of which the infinite is always to
be found: "we lay down a limit: then we pass it: next we have a limit
once more, and so on for ever" . 1 6 Thus, according to Hegel, the so­
called progress to infinity is in fact "only a recurring monotony, one
and the same wearisome alternation of this finite and infinite". 1 7
Hegel argues that this account of infinity is deeply unsatisfactory,
not least because it suggests that infinity is unattainable : "To suppose
that by stepping out and away into that infinity we release ourselves
from the finite, is in truth but to seek the release which comes by
flight. But the man who flees is not yet free: in fleeing he is still
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 05
conditi oned by that from which he flees."1 8 In this analogy, flight and
its implied correlative, pursuit, are relational concepts which cannot
be separated. If we try to conceive them independently we have to
imagine both as interminable, for, by definition, no flight or pursuit
is ever successfully completed while remaining an act of flight or an
act of pursuit. But if we conceive of both flight and pursuit having
the same object, something which is both fleeing and pursuing itself,
it comes to rest in a circle formed by its relationship to itself.
I nf i n i te P r ogress
Kant's defmition of infinity as the negation of the finite had direct
moral, political and historical consequences in that it extended all
progress in these areas indefinitely, without the goal being reached.
The categorical imperative impelled the individual towards con­
formity with the path of duty, but, as Kant observed, "the perfect fit
of the will to moral law is holiness, which is a perfection of which no
rational being in the world of sense is at any time capable" . 1 9 In the
Critique ifPractical Reason, the tension between the unattainable end
of moral law and the finitude of human existence is resolved by
positing "an endless progress to that perfect fitness" and "an infinitely
enduring existence and personality of the same rational being" (i. e .
an immortal soul) t o undertake the neverending journey. 2 0
One motivation for Hegel's attack on Kant's account of infinity
was that it contained within it the structure for such seemingly
fruitless journeys. Infmity was the negation of the finite, and the cat­
egorical imperative drove the negation: "At Ought the transgression
beyond finitude, Infinity, begins. Ought is that which leaving behind
impossibility, manifests itself in its development as progress into
the infinite."2 1 But instead of going beyond the fmite, the ought
1 06 Seeing Things Hidden
posited an infinite that simply negated the fmite, and as such could
never be realised from within the finite. Hegel therefore claimed
that: "Bad infinity is the same as perpetual Ought, it is negation of
the finite, but cannot truly rid itself of finitude.'m
The focus of Hegel's concern about the infinite progress derived
from the ought was not, however, the immortality of the individual
soul (a doctrine he appears to have accepted) but rather the prospect
of infinite social progress in history. As he complained in the
Encyclopaedia, Kantian philosophy took "especial pleasure" in pre­
scribing the imperative "ought" on the field of politics. 23 The
connection between individual morality and society is spelt out by
Kant in Reli9ion within the Limits ifReason Alone. A social life creates
temptations to which people would be immune if they had no con­
tact with others: "envy, the lust for power, greed, and the malignant
inclinations bound up with these" beset an individual who would
otherwise be satisfied with his lot "as soon as he is amon9 men". 24 Kant
therefore concludes that it is difficult for individual moral progress
to continue without collective moral progress:
the sovereignty of the good principle is attainable, so far as
men can work toward it, only through the establishment and
spread of a society in accordance with, and for the sake of, the
laws of virtue, a society whose task and duty it is rationally to
impress these laws in all their scope upon the entire human
race. 2 5
The achievement of this ethical society is itself a moral duty
incumbent not upon separate individuals (for any one of whom its
realisation is necessarily impossible) but upon the human race as a
species. Nevertheless, given the frailty of human nature, this goal is
itself "never wholly attainable"2 6 and results only in "a continual
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 07
approach towards such a consummation". 27 The ethical common­
wealth is to be distinguished from a political commonwealth
both because the latter does not involve the whole of mankind, and
because its laws, unlike those of morality, are inevitably coercive.
However, unless the ethical society is based upon a political one
that permits the complete freedom necessary for the exercise of
morality, "it can never be brought into existence by man". 28 Thus,
the establishment of a political commonwealth is a goal that logically
precedes the possible realisation of an ethical society. But, for Kant,
this prospect too is infmitely remote, both because all political soci­
eties depend on individual leaders, who, given the imperfect nature
of individual morality at this stage, will inevitably be flawed them­
selves, 29 and because no one political society can enjoy freedom
until relations between all societies approach a condition of per­
petual peace - an objective which Kant concedes may be realised
"only through approximation in endless progress". 30
As Kant recognised, all these forms of collective progress pre­
suppose an infinitely enduring entity other than the individual
immortal soul, namely "the totality of a series of generations pro­
ceeding into infinity". 3 1 And although Kant never acknowledges the
tension, the assumption that individual progress presupposes col­
lective progress, and moral progress political progress, has the effect
of refocusing attention from the soul to the species and from moral­
ity to politics. So despite insisting that political progress could in
theory be achieved by a race of devils, Kant repeatedly couples the
moral and the political. Not only does he claim that it is a moral duty
to work for political progress and that political progress is an
inevitable result of increasing morality, but he cites the widespread
enthusiasm for the political progress manifest in the early stages of
the French Revolution as decisive proof that the human race is
making moral progress. 32 And as the first in the sequence of (never
1 08 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
fully taken) steps towards the ethical commonwealth is the political
one of sorting out the problem of international relations, it is to this
end that Kant (in the "Perpetual Peace") devotes his most practical
efforts to promote human progress.
The final result of the shift from the individual to the collective is
that when Kant is forced to choose between them he reinterprets the
beatitude of the immortal soul outside of history as the progress of
the species within history. What Christian eschatology described as
an end to the world survived by the immortal souls, Kant read as "a
symbolical representation intended merely to enliven hope and
courage and to increase our endeavours to that end". 33 The world
could not literally end; time could not be succeeded by eternity.
Reusing his argument against the finitude of the world in the First
Antinomy (with the obvious difference that he is now discussing
whether time has an end in the world rather than the world a begin­
ning in time), Kant objected that a world without time was just as
meaningless as time without a world. Where there is no time, no
end is possible, and if the end of the temporal world is meant simul­
taneously to be the beginning of an eternal world, the latter "is
brought into one and the same temporal series as the former" with
the contradictory result that eternity is assigned a determinate
beginning at the end of finite time and so belongs to time itself. Thus
Kant concludes, "nothing else remains for reason except to visualise
a variation that progresses into the infinite (in time) within the per­
petual progression toward the ultimate purpose". 34
T h e A g e o f th e S p irit
That Kant's moral argument against the mortality of the soul should
have slipped from its original moorings to become an argument
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 09
against the end of history is an irony that has escaped most com­
mentators. But it was with precisely this aspect of Kant's argument
that Hegel was most concerned. His account of the infinite demon­
strated that Kant's exclusive, and therefore unattainable, infinite
generated (and was generated by) unacknowledged contradictions.
Hegel resolved this problem by redefining the infinite as something
that was necessarily contradictory; in other words, something that
did not exclude the finite, and was therefore attainable within fini­
tude. So rather than trying to keep the finite and infinite apart, and
setting up the flip-flop alternation of infinite progress, Hegel's infi­
nite held out the prospect of an end to history. Instead of an
interminable attempt to avoid contradiction, there would be a con­
tradictory ending.
The primary application of the true infinite is to the understand­
ing of world history. World history, Hegel claims, is the story of
reason, in which reason "is substance and irifinite power . . the irifinite
.
material of all natural and spiritual life, and the irifiniteform which
activates this material content". 35 Unlike finite things, reason is its
own sole precondition and ultimate end, and its own agent in real­
ising that end in history. This process may be termed the "evolution
of the world spirit", 36 for, according to Hegel, the aim of world his­
tory is that "the spirit should attain knowledge of its own true
nature, that it should objectivise this knowledge and transform it
into a real world". 37
Hegel does not question Kant's belief that world history is the his­
tory of progress. On the contrary, he thinks of the development of
the spirit as a form of progress, 38 and claims that "the world spirit
progresses from lower determinations to higher principles and con­
cepts of its own nature, to more fully developed expressions of its
Idea". 39 But since the defining characteristic of reason, or the world
spirit, is its infinity, what is progressively expressed is the nature of
,.....
1 10 Seeing Things Hidden
the true infinite itself. What takes place in history is not therefore a
progress to infinity, but the progress of the infinite towards the
union of the finite and the infinite and their "consummation in an all­
embracing totality". 40 Just as the true infinite inscribes a circle, so
the realisation of the spirit's true nature involves a circular move­
ment that precludes progress beyond it.
The concept of the spirit involves a return upon itself,
whereby it makes itself its own object; progress, therefore, is
not an indeterminate advance ad infinitum, for it has a definite
aim - namely that of returning upon itself. Thus, it also
involves a kind of cyclic movement as the spirit attempts to
discover itself. 41
When this happens, history necessarily comes to an end and eternal
life begins, for "Eternal life consists in the very process of continu­
ally producing the opposition and continually reconciling it. To
know opposition in unity, and unity in opposition - this is absolute
knowledge.'>42 According to Hegel, this transformation was not
something that would take place at some finite time in the future,
but was happening even as he wrote. At the end of the Lectures on the
History if Philosophy, he proclaims that:
A new epoch has arisen in the world. It would appear as if the
World-spirit had at last succeeded in stripping off from itself
all alien objective existence, and apprehending itself at last as
absolute Spirit.43
This new age is not just the age of the spirit, it is the age of the Holy
Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The world spirit corresponds
to God, the divine spirit, and so the reconciliation of the infinite and
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 111
the finite in the true infinite is identified with the self-apprehension
of God in the relation between Father and Son:
Christianity . . . contains a revelation of God's spiritual nature.
In the first place, he is the Father, a power which is universal
but as yet enclosed within itself. Secondly, he is his own
object, another version of himself, dividing himself into two so
as to produce the Son. But this other version is just as imme­
diate an expression of him as he is himself; he knows himself
and contemplates himself in it - and it is this self-knowledge
and self-contemplation which constitutes the third element,
the Spirit as such. In other words, the Spirit is the whole, and
not just one or other of the elements in isolation. 44
Within Germanic or Christian history this dialectic is realised in
microcosm as three historical periods. According to Hegel,
We may distinguish these periods as Kingdoms of the Father,
the Son, and the Spirit. The Kingdom of the Father is the con­
solidated, undistinguished mass, presenting a self-repeating
cycle, mere change - like that sovereignty of Chronos engulf­
ing his offspring. The Kingdom of the Son is the manifestation
of God merely in a relation to secular existence - shining upon
it as upon an alien object. The Kingdom of the Spirit is the
harmonizing of the antithesis.45
The age of the Holy Spirit, like the true infinite, is a reconciliation
of opposites in a totality. For Hegel, therefore, "it is as totality that
God is Spirit",46 and it is as totality that history culminates: "We have
reached the stage of Spirit; here the universal includes everything
within itself." 47
112 S e e ing T h in g s H i d d e n
H e g e l 's A p oca l y p s e
The idea that Hegel was an apocalyptic thinker is hardly novel, for it
has long been argued that Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic reappears in
secular form in Hegel's work. Indeed, it might fairly be said that
Hegel is the primary focus of the debate about whether it makes
sense to speak of a secular apocalypse. According to Karl Lowith,
who was the first to articulate this claim, Hegel took the Christian,
and ultimately Hebraic, notion that history has "an irreversible direc­
tion toward a future goal"48 and transposed the "expectation of the
end of the world of time into the course of the world process, and
the absolute of faith into the rational realm of history". 49
There is plenty of evidence that can be used to support the idea
that Hegel is an apocalyptic thinker. Those who define apocalyptic in
eschatological terms can point to Hegel's implicit belief in the end
of history, while those who define apocalyptic as revelation can
point to Hegel's insistence upon the revelatory nature of
Christianity. All can cite the fact that Hegel followed a course on the
book of Revelation in his student days at Tiibingen, and that, in
giving to the Reformation a decisive place in world history, he was
echoing a strain of Lutheran exegesis fed by the apocalyptic com­
mentaries of Joachim and Bengel. According to Cyril O ' Regan,
the most recent and most systematic advocate of this hypothesis, the
most "significant material overlaps" between Hegel's philosophy of
history and apocalyptic are that history is viewed from a universal
perspective as part of a divine plan manifest in a sequence of periods
which culminates in a new era that is, in some sense, also an end to
history. 5°
However, even if one manages to take all of these indicators
together the evidence for Hegel's apocalypticism is only of the most
general kind. Everyone writing a history of the world viewed history
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 113
as a totality divisible into sequential periods. The providence of God
in history, and the ascription to Christianity in general (and the
Reformation in particular) of a decisive revelatory function were
commonplaces of (Protestant) orthodoxy from which only deter­
mined sceptics dissented. That the present era was the culmination
of those preceding was an assumption made by virtually every writer
on history since the Renaissance. As for the evidence of Hegel's
actual engagement with primary and secondary apocalyptic texts, it
is conspicuous more by its absence than its presence. By these meas­
ures, Hegel had fewer apocalyptic concerns than Herder, Kant,
Lessing, Schelling or Comte.
The one thing that appears to distinguish Hegel from most of his
contemporaries is his belief that history had come to an end. But, as
critics of Fukuyama were quick to point out, there is no explicit
statement to this effect in Hegel's writings, and although the ending
of history may be inferred from Hegel's other arguments it is not of
itself a major or even minor theme in his work. Thus, even those
who would argue that eschatology is the primary characteristic of
apocalyptic can do no more than gesture towards the eschatological
implications of Hegel's philosophy of history. That almost all
philosophies of history in this period contain elements of the
Christian understanding of history is incontestable, but the sugges­
tion that Hegel in particular is distinguished by his affinity with
Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic is, on the grounds cited above, impos­
sible to demonstrate.
Nevertheless, it remains possible that the intuition is basically
correct. If we define apocalyptic as the revelation of contradiction or
indeterminacy, Hegel emerges as the apocalyptic thinker par excel­
lence. Not only did he identify contradiction as that which had been
excluded by earlier philosophers, but he made it the primary objec­
tive of his system to reincorporate those excluded contradictions. By
Ill"'"''
1 14 Seeing Things Hidden
this measure, Hegel is an apocalyptic thinker not alongside but in
contradistinction to all his predecessors and contemporaries who
shared a belief in divine revelation through history. Furthermore, the
analysis above suggests that Hegel's espousal of contradiction led
directly to the formation of an eschatological alternative to a Kantian
teleology that resisted closure by perpetually postponing contra­
diction. Thus it may be argued not only that Hegel's eschatological
alternative to infinite progress, the age of the spirit, was generated
by an apocalyptic reincorporation of contradiction, but that by
taking the disjunction of infinite and finite as the primary example of
contradiction excluded, Hegel was making Kant's doctrine of infi­
nite progress the first target of his dialectical system . So, rather
than detracting from his eschatology, focusing on Hegel's apocalyp­
tic concern with the reincorporation of contradiction suggests that
the eschatological thrust of his system was more powerful than
might otherwise be supposed.
Although the claim that Hegel is an apocalyptic thinker can be
restated more convincingly in this form, the terms of reference
have changed . The explicitly theological content of Hegel's philos­
ophy of history is now largely irrelevant. In arguing that Hegel
consciously sought to displace Kant's teleology with an apocalyptic
eschatology, there is no suggestion that Hegel was resacralising
Kantian thought, or that he was reintroducing the traditional doc­
trines of Christian eschatology that Kant had dismissed or
reinterpreted. On the contrary, Hegel's apocalyptic eschatology is
derived simply from the conjunction of two things that for Kant
were radically and necessarily separate : the totality of history and the
totalisation of truth-values involved in the union of contradictory
predicates. For Kant, it was the impossibility of contradiction in
the world as a thing-in-itself that shaped the totality ofhistory. Given
that finite and infinite were incommensurable, no finite series could
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 115
attain an infinite goal, so all progress and therefore all history must
be infinite. For Hegel, on the other hand, the possible union of
finite and infinite meant not just that history might be fmite but that
it need not extend beyond the time it took for that union to be
realised. Without the perpetual need to defer contradiction, there
was no motivation for any progress or any history, so for Hegel the
totality of history is simply the totalisation of that contradiction
whose avoidance had for Kant constituted the totality of history. For
Hegel history is not just progress to a contradiction, but the progress
of a contradiction to its complete realisation.
With this defmition of Hegel's apocalyptic, the difficulty lies not
in showing that the apocalyptic aspects of Hegel's thought were an
important and distinctive part of his system, but in demonstrating
their continuity with the Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic tradition.
Defmed in such a way that ideas of divine providence, theodicy and
salvation are rendered irrelevant (at least to the definition of apoc­
alyptic qua apocalyptic), Hegel's system is deprived of the features
generally supposed to link it to other apocalyptic texts.
Furthermore, it could be argued that the two essential elements of
Hegel's philosophy of history, the idea of progress and the idea of
contradiction, are both alien to Christian apocalyptic. Not only is it
not self-evident that the idea of progress is equivalent to, or even
derived from, the idea of providential history, but some might claim
that rather than replicating the structure of apocalyptic described in
chapter 2 , Hegel's dialectic was the abstract formula to which tra­
ditional apocalyptic texts were anachronistically forced to conform.
To clarify Hegel's relationship to earlier apocalyptic texts, and to
demonstrate that the features Hegel's apocalyptic has in common
with them arise from within the Judaeo-Christian tradition rather
than just from my determination to interpret the Judaeo-Christian
tradition in Hegelian terms, I will deal separately with the idea of
1 16 S e e ing T h i n g s H i d d e n
progress and with the concept of contradiction, before returning to
the question of Hegel's fusion of the two.
P rogress
The primary sources of Hegel's conception of progress were Kant,
against whose extension of progress to infinity Hegel's arguments
are directed, and his early hero, Lessing, whose optimistic account
of human progress in the Education 1the Human Race he had first read
as a student. 5 1 But as both Kant and Lessing were themselves expo­
nents of an Enlightenment vision of progress already largely secular
in content, it is necessary to push the question back from Hegel's
immediate predecessors to their sources . If Hegel's conception of
progress is rooted in apocalyptic, it is not because Hegel himself
effected the transposition, but because the idea of progress is itself
an identifiable product of the apocalyptic tradition.
The view that the idea of progress is taken from apocalyptic was
put forward by Lowith, who suggested that the Enlightenment
belief in progress was a secularised form of religion "deri�ed from
the Christian faith in a future goal, through substituting an indefi­
nite and immanent eschaton for a definite and transcendent one". 52
However, the argument remains controversial, for in the first part
of his massive study, The Lenitimacy 1 the Modern Ane,
Blumenberg marshalled a battery of objections which some con­
Hans
sider to have dealt a death-blow to Lowith's theory. Any attempt to
identify the source of the idea of progress must therefore address
what has become known as the Lowith-Blumenberg debate.
According to Blumenberg, if Lowith's secularisation thesis is to
work it must be on the basis of an analogy between the secularisa­
tion of ideas and the secularisation or expropriation of ecclesiastical
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 17
property. The secularisation theorist must be able to demonstrate
"the identifiability of the expropriated property, the legitimacy of
its initial ownership, and the unilateral nature of its removal". 53 Of
these requirements the first is decisive, for Blumenberg believes
that it is impossible to prove the identity and continuity of the sub­
stance of Christian eschatology and the secular idea of progress.
Whereas "eschatology speaks of an event breaking into history, an
event that transcends and is heterogeneous to it . . . the idea of
progress extrapolates from a structure present in every moment to
a future that is immanent in history". 54 It is therefore improbable
that
theological eschatology, with its idea of the "consummation" of
history by its discontinuance, could have provided the model
for an idea of the forward movement of history according to
which it was supposed . . . to gain stability and reliability
through its consummation or its approach to consummation. 55
But if Christian apocalyptic did not provide the model, how
did the idea of progress originate? According to Blumenberg,
the idea of progress entails "a coordinative relation between the
quantum of time and the quality of achievement. . . . in which
the quantity of distance in time becomes the chief premise of new
possibilities". 5 6 The concept must therefore have evolved in a situa­
I!
tion in which there was "a logical tie between time quantum and I
l
achievement quality". 57 This condition was met in the development
of early modern astronomy in which it was recognised that theoret­
l:i
ical progress depended upon the comparison of observations that I!
could not, even in principle, be undertaken in less than several life­ !
times. Astronomy, Blumenberg asserts, offered a "breadth of the
temporal horizon, that was absent from the medieval consciousness
1 18 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
even where apocalyptic expectations or fears did not narrow it down
to an immediate concern with salvation". 58
Blumenberg acknowledges that the idea of progress derived from
astronomy, with its "regionally circumscribed and objectively limited
range", 59 was later used by philosophers like Lessing, Kant and
Hegel to answer questions about the totality of history that had
been posed within a Christian framework. But he argues that in this
process the idea of progress was "removed from its empirical foun­
dations . . . and forced to perform a function that was originally
defined by a system that is alien to it" . 60 So, according to
Blumenberg, this development was not a secularisation of earlier
Christian beliefs about history, for, even in its overextended form,
the idea of progress had no continuity of substance with the
Christian doctrines that had answered the same questions, only an
identity of function: a functional equivalence that Blumenberg terms
a "reoccupation" of the earlier position.
If Blumenberg is correct, then the idea of progress used by Hegel
is rooted not in the Christian apocalyptic tradition, but in a scientific
conception of progress derived from astronomy. However, there is
evidence to suggest that Blumenberg's theory is mistaken even
within the terms that he sets for himself. A good example of the
problems inherent in Blumenberg's argument is provided by
Lessing's Education if the Human Race. Lessing here gives an account
of human progress that is secular rather than religious, teleological
rather than eschatological; and in the preface to the nineteenth-cen­
tury English translation, the translator adds examples of scientific
progress to suggest the plausibility of Lessing's theory:
Did the earth ever do other than go round the sun? yet how
long is it since man found this out? . . . Are the spiritual truths
of man's nature more easily discerned than the physical
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 19
phenomena which surround him? Why should there not be
development in these as well as in those?61
On this reading, Lessing's text would appear to be a paradigm case
of a secular teleology using a model of progress derived from
astronomy.
However, Lessing's own argument for moral progress is a direct
extrapolation of the Christian idea of a progressive revelation: if
that which was manifest in the Law came to fulfilment in Christ,
may not that which was revealed in Christ yet be fulfilled in history?
This argument is not derived, even by analogy, from the progress of
science, for, as Lessing states, its sources are Christian, and are to be
found in the New Testament and the Joachite tradition. Hence the
rapturous declaration:
It will assuredly come ! the time of a new eternal Gospel,
which is promised us in the Primer of the New Testament
itself. . . . some enthusiasts of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries had caught a glimpse of a beam of this new eternal
Gospel. . . . Perhaps their "Three Ages of the World" were not
so vain a fancy after all. 62
Lessing's Education if the Human Race provides an example of a
theory whose form and roots were explicitly Christian subse­ :I
, ,
quently being read in terms of the belief in scientific progress. It
I
Ii
suggests that rather than being the paradigm for a secular teleology,
scientific progress may be used as evidence for a theological model
of teleology. Blumenberg does not investigate this possibility. He
depicts apocalyptic as being narrowly and nervously concerned
with eschatology, and so fails to notice that, like astronomy, the
interpretation of the hidden meaning of apocalyptic texts was
1 20 Seeing Things Hidden H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 121

founded upon a coordinative relation between time and knowl­ three ages of the world he called the three status. Because it was, as

edge in which distance in time was the prerequisite of further Joachim put it, impossible to speak of that part of the cloth which

understanding. was not yet woven, people living in the second status could recognise

For early modern interpreters of the apocalyptic books, it was the significance of events in the first status, but not yet appreciate

almost axiomatic that the Bible had laid down a programme for the those of the second whose meaning would become apparent only in

future which would be fulfilled, and so become progressively more the third status6 5 when the secrets of the prophecies would be

recognisable, over long periods of time.6

3 The famous sixteenth­ opened:

century Jesuit commentator Juan de Maldonado spelt out the

connection between the passage of time and the progress of knowl­ In the third status the mysteries will be uncovered and accessi­

edge in his remarks on Daniel 1 2 .4 (Plurimi pertransibunt, et multiplex ble to the faithful, because for each of the ages of the world

erit scientia - "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be knowledge is increased just as it is written : many will run to

increased"). This text, he argued, revealed that knowledge would be and fro and knowledge will be multiplied (Dan. 1 2 .4). 66

increased as people, prompted by events, studied the prophecies to

ascertain which had been fulfilled. But such knowledge was to be By the early modern period, this understanding of progressive

gained after the event and was thus wholly dependent on history: prophetic fulfilment was widely accepted by many who were not

when Daniel wrote in the sixth century BCE, no one understood professional exegetes. Francis Bacon, a central figure in

him; four hundred years later, after the persecution of Antiochus Blumenberg's secular genealogy of the idea of progress, made a

Epiphanes, people understood some of the things to which Daniel comparably clear statement of the progressive and time-dependent

referred, although others, such as the prophecies relating to nature of prophetic fulfilment and interpretation in The Advancement
Antichrist, were still incomprehensible.64 cifLearnina:
Maldonado's assumption that the prophecies in apocalyptic books
like Daniel have their fulfilment throughout the course of history [The] history of prophecy, consisteth of two relatives, the

was first articulated in the work of the twelfth-century commenta­ prophecy and the accomplishment; and therefore the nature of

tor Joachim of Fiore. In contrast to the spiritual interpretation of such a work ought to be, that every prophecy of the scripture

apocalyptic adopted at the end of the Patristic period by Tyconius, be sorted with the event fulfilling the same, throughout the

Augustine and Jerome, Joachim argued that prophecy was fulfilled ages of the world ...allowing nevertheless that latitude which

not in the moral life of the Christian church, but in the sequence of is agreeable and familiar unto divine prophecies; being of the

events unfolding in history. So rather than believing, as had Jerome nature of their author, with whom a thousand years are but as

and most other commentators, that multiplex erit scientia meant that one day, and therefore are not filled punctually at once, but

opinions about the prophecies would diversify, Joachim suggested have springing and germinant accomplishment throughout

that knowledge about them would steadily increase throughout the many ages. 67
1 22 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
This passage is of particular importance because Bacon had already
provided an example of the fulfilment of prophecy a few lines
earlier - an example he used repeatedly in support of his belief that
the sciences could progress towards the lnstauratio Maana, the great
restoration of knowledge:
And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant
also an expectation of the further proficience and augmenta­
tion of all sciences; because it may seem that they are ordained
by God to be coevals, that is, to meet in one age. For so the
prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times foretelleth, Plurimi
pertransibunt, et multiplex erit scientia [Dan. 1 2 .4]: as if the open­
ness and through-passage of the world and the increase of
knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages; as we see it
68
already performed in great part.
For Bacon, it would seem, the progress of science was a fulfilment
of prophecy, and belief in its continued progress an inference from
the partial to the complete fulfilment of prophecy. Read in the con­
text of his remarks about the nature of prophecy, Bacon's
interpretation of Dan . 1 2 .4 suggests that, like Maldonado, he
believed knowledge would continue to grow in fulfilment of
prophecy because prophecy itself was progressive in its fulfilment.
He argued for the progress of science not by extrapolation from that
progress, but by coupling it with the progressive knowledge derived
from prophecy.
Blumenberg supposes that the idea of progress required "the sup­
pression of eschatological expectations or fears", 69 but both before
and after Bacon millenarian writers were using the same arguments
in an explicitly religious context. Guillaume Postel, the eccentric
sixteenth-century French Joachite whose achievements as what
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 123
Bacon termed a maanus perearinator, et mathematicu/0 made him a
living fulfilment of Dan 1 2 .4, not only fed his hopes on exactly the
same developments in knowledge and exploration, but actually saw
himself as the instaurator of an imminent restitutio omnium. Later,
William Twisse, a Puritan divine, read Bacon's interpretation of
Dan. 1 2 .4 in the manuscript of Valerius Terminus, and effortlessly
incorporated Bacon's reading into a millennia! vision of spiritual
progress which foreshadows that of Lessing. 71 Thus, although Bacon
may have used the concept of progress derived from prophecy to
support his own scientific agenda, he was not (as Blumenberg con­
tends) introducing a scientifically generated concept of progress but
appropriating an established Christian theology of progressive
enlightenment through prophetic fulfilment in history.
Joachim had used multiplex erit scientia to refer to the fullness of
understanding characteristic of the third status, 72 and for Bacon the
same phrase heralded the Great lnstauration: it thus functioned as
the motto for his entire programme, and was printed prominently
on the title page of the Maana lnstauratio. Almost two centuries
later, Kant, seeking an epigraph for the massive intellectual project
embodied by the three Critiques, turned to Bacon, and inserted into
the second edition of the Critique if Pure Reason a passage from the
preface of Bacon's Maana lnstauratio. In the final sentence of the epi­
graph, the reader is entreated: " . . . to be of good hope, and not to
imagine that this instauration of mine is a thing infinite and beyond
the power of man, when it is in fact the true end and termination of
infinite error".73 By openly identifying his own critical programme
with Bacon's lnstauration, and taking over from him the idea of a
progressive reconstruction of knowledge through the gradual elim­
ination of error that would lead towards "the supreme end, the
happiness of all mankind", 74 Kant too implicitly placed his project
under the motto multiplex erit scientia. And although he initially
1 24 Seeing Things Hidden
hoped that reason might achieve its goals by the end of the century,
Kant, like Bacon - who in the sentence quoted above goes on to say
that the prospect of a Great Instauration "does not suppose that the
work can be altogether completed within one generation, but pro­
vides for it being taken up by another"75 - came to recognise that "a
single man would have to live excessively long" to make full use of
his reason, and that an "unreckonable series of generations" might be
required for humanity to do so. 76
Unlike Bacon, Kant did not have to see contemporary intellectual
developments as a direct fulfilment of this prophecy, but he never­
theless positioned himself in a direct line of descent from those
biblical interpreters for whom progress was the fulfilment of
prophecy because prophecy required progressive fulfilment. So for
Hegel, whose complaint that Germans "like to adorn their works
with sententious sayings" culled from Bacon77 may have been aimed
at Kant's epigraph for the first Critique, it was not just Lessing who
provided a vision of progress derived from the Christian interpreta­
tion of apocalyptic. Lessing's debt to the Joachite tradition may have
been more immediate, but Kant too saw his project in terms that
would have been familiar not just to a philosopher like Bacon, but to
a Joachite like Postel. In so far as Hegel's conception of progress is
founded on that of his immediate predecessors, it is an idea rooted
in the historicist interpretation of apocalyptic texts.
C on tradic tion
To find the apocalyptic origins of Hegel's conception of progress it
was necessary to exhume the roots of the idea itself, but there is no
need to dig so deeply to discover the apocalyptic origins of Hegel's
idea of contradiction. In the section on contradiction in the Science if
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 25
Logic, Hegel offers a number of "trivial examples" of the way in
which relative concepts imply their opposites and are thus joined in
a contradictory union. The example he chooses to discuss is that of
father and son:
Father is the Other of son, and son of father, and each exists
only as this Other of the other; and also the one determination
exists only in relation to the other: their Being is one persist­
ence. Father is something for himself apart from the relation
to son, but then he is not father, but a man in general . 78
In this context, the father-son relation serves only to exemplify
Hegel's general thesis that the negative unity of relative concepts
should not be ignored, and that intelligent reflection demands the
understanding and articulation of just such contradictions. Yet
Hegel's dismissal of the father-son relation as a trivial example of the I
, I,
I
same kind as right-left or above-below is misleading, for when he
first addressed the problem of the father-son relation, it was not just
one of many contradictions, but a problem in its own right which
prompted the realisation that contradiction was an essential charac­
teristic of life.
In The Spirit if Christianity, Hegel engages in a sustained medita­
tion on the relationship between the first two persons of the Trinity.
Discussing the relationship between God and the Logos in the pro­
logue to the gospel of John, he argues that "Even this simple form of
reflection is not adapted to the spiritual expression of spirit. . . .
because everything expressed about the divine in the language of
reflection is eo ipso contradictory."79 The problem, he suggests, is
that the predicates involved are not abstract concepts or universals,
but something being and living. The relationship between the first
two persons of the Trinity was more successfully expressed in Jesus'
1 26 Seeing Things Hidden
description of himself as "son of God", for here the essential unity of
father and son leads to the realisation that for living beings contra­
dictions are capable of resolution:
The relation of a son to his father is not a conceptual unity . . .
a unity which is only a unity in thought and is abstracted from
life. On the contrary it is a living relation of living beings, a
likeness of life. Father and son are simply modifications of the
same life, not opposite essences, not a plurality of absolute
substantialities. Thus the son of God is the same essence as the
father, and yet for every act of reflective thinking, though only
for such thinking, he is a separate essence . . . . What is a con­
tradiction in the realm of the dead is not one in the realm of
li£e. 80
At this early stage of his philosophical development, Hegel did not
accept that contradictions could be sustained, and so implied that
contradictions in one realm are dissolved in another. When he later
realised that the resolution of contradiction need not entail its dis­
appearance, he redescribed the resulting unity as a contradiction
comprehended rather than a contradiction dissolved. But, as is evi­
dent from the account of the father-son relationship in The Spirit if
Christianity and The Science if Logic, there was no discontinuity
between the two positions.
It was, in fact, the contradictions generated by the doctrine of
the Trinity that forced Hegel to look for ways in which other com­
plementary relationships could be described without thereby
creating discrete essences. The need to resolve the opposition
between infinity and finitude is first motivated by the need to sort
out another aspect of the relationship between the persons of the
Trinity:
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 27
The son of God is also son of man; the divine in a particular
shape appears as a man. The connection of infinite and finite is
of course a "holy mystery", because this connection is life
itself. Reflective thinking, which partitions life, can distin­
guish it into infinite and finite, and then it is only the
restriction, the finite regarded by itself, which affords the
concept of man as opposed to the divine. But outside reflective
thinking, and in truth, there is no such restriction. 81
In an earlier version, the relevance of the argument to Hegel's later
rejection of the Kantian conception of infinity is clearer still:
The connection of the infinite with the finite is of course a holy
mystery, because it is life, and hence the secret of life; once we
begin to speak of a twofold nature, the divine and the human,
no joining is to be found, because in every joining they still
remain two if both have been posited as absolutely distinct.
This relation of a man to God, his being the son of God, as a
trunk is father of the boughs, the foliage and the fruit was
bound to shock the Jews to the depths, since they had placed
an unbridgeable gulf between human and divine being and
granted to our nature no share in the divine. 82
At this stage it is the Jews, rather than Kant, who are said to be
guilty of defining the infinite and the finite, the divine and the
human, in such mutually exclusive terms that no union of the two is
possible except as a yoking together of two separate entities (com­
parable to that represented by Kant's bad infinite) . In opposition to
this radical disjunction of infinite and finite, Hegel offers not the
convoluted argument he is later to develop, but a simple botanical
analogy of the fusion of separate entities in a living union.
1 28 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
Nevertheless, the problem of the relation of infinite and finite has
already been set.
That the resolution of mysteries of the Godhead should eventu­
ally have resulted in an attempt to resolve Kant's cosmological
antinomies should not come as a surprise, for Hegel clearly had
Kant's Critique ?[Pure Reason in mind as well as his Religion within the
Limits ?[Reason Alone as he wrote about the nature of the Trinity. In
an earlier text, The Positivity ifthe Christian Religion, Hegel had attrib­
uted the early church's doctrinal disputes about the nature of God to
the application to the infinite of what Kant, describing their appli­
cation to the antinomies, had called mathematical rather than
dynamical categories:
We see humanity less occupied with dynamical categories,
which theoretical reason is capable of stretching to cover the
infinite, than with applying to its infinite object numerical
categories, reflective categories like difference etc. 83
So, in The Spirit if Christianity, it was quite natural for Hegel to
express the difficulty of understanding the relationship between God
and the Logos in terms of Kant's Second Antinomy. Kant had argued
both that all things are finitely divisible, and that they are infinitely
divisible with the consequence that we are forced to assume both that
all things in the world are simple beings and that all things are com­
posite. 84 Hegel transposes the antinomy to God and the Logos:
God and the Logos become distinct because being must be
taken from a double point of view [by reflection1, since reflec­
tion supposes that that to which it gives a reflected form is at
the same time not reflected; i.e. , it takes Being (i) to be the
single in which there is no partition or opposition, and (ii) at
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 29
the same time to be the single which is potentially separable
and infinitely divisible into parts. 85
The argument is based on the Johannine statement that the Logos
created all things, for it would seem to follow from this that all
things are somehow contained within the Logos, and that the
Logos is therefore infinitely divisible. But, as Hegel points out,
"the Logos itself is with God; both are one", and so God embodies
the Kantian antinomy: a being both indivisible and infinitely divisible.
In The Spirit if Christianity, this contradiction serves chiefly to
exemplify the general point that everything divine expressed in the
language of reflection is necessarily contradictory, and Hegel does
little to resolve the antinomy except to note that it implies not only
that the one God is infinitely divisible, but also, using the tree anal­
ogy once more, that each finite part somehow participates in the
infinite unity of God: "The single entity, the restricted entity, as
something opposed [to life1 , something dead, is yet a branch of the
infinite tree of life. Each part, to which the whole is external, is yet
a whole, a life."86 In the Science ?[Logic, the same antinomy is recast
as the opposition between continuity and discreteness, but the con­
clusion is nevertheless the same :
Continuity itself contains the moment of the atom, since con­
tinuity exists simply as the possibility of division; just as
accomplished division, or discreteness, cancels all distinction
between the ones - for each simple one is what every other
is - and for that very reason contains their equality and there­
fore their continuity. Each of the two sides contains its other in
itself. 87
The use of the same arboreal analogy to describe the
1 30 Seeing Things Hidden
contradictory union of infinite and finite, and of divisible part and
indivisible whole, suggests that the image had a privileged role in
Hegel's thinking at this stage . This is confirmed in The Spirit if
Christianity when Hegel, still discussing the relationship of the son to
the father, again seeks to convey the mysterious way in which con­
tradiction can be resolved:
What is a contradiction in the realm of the dead is not one in
the realm of life. A tree which has three branches makes up
with them one tree; but every "son" of the tree, every branch
(and also its other "children", leaves and blossoms) is itself a
tree. The fibres bringing sap to the branch from the stem are
of the same nature as the roots. If a [cutting from certain types
of] tree is set in the ground upside down it will put forth
leaves out of the roots in the air, and the boughs will root
themselves in the ground. And it is just as true to say that there
is only one tree here as to say that there are three . 8 8
I n this remarkably compressed passage, the arboreal analogy is
extended without explanation from the dyad of father and son to a
triadic, and thus implicitly trinitarian division. The abrupt intrusion
of a trinitarian reflection into Hegel's discussion of the Incarnation
indicates that the passage may reflect another source. Harris suggests
that Hegel is here combining Jesus' image of himself and his follow­
ers as a vine and its branches with Goethe's Ur-Jiflanze, 8 9 the primal
plant which Goethe believed contained within itself the origin of all
other plants. However, neither source is concerned with trees or
with triadic division, and although Hegel mentions the vine and
branches metaphor some pages later, he does so without any refer­
ence to its contradictory properties. As the use of arboreal analogies
to describe the Trinity was well established, it seems more likely that
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 131
Hegel is drawing on this tradition rather than independently re­
creating it.
Tertullian was first to find in the tree an expression of the mys­
tery of the Trinity, but the elaboration of the arboreal analogy was
primarily the achievement of Joachim of Fiore. For Joachim, the tree
was not just one image amongst many but the primary expression of
his Trinitarian doctrine and the inspiration for repeated attempts to
represent the complex relationships between the divine persons. 90
As almost everything Hegel has to say about the relationship of the
tree to its branches has close parallels in Joachim, there is good
reason to suspect that it may be derived, at least indirectly, from his
work. 9 1
I n the Liber Concordiae, Joachim describes seeing the Trinity as
three trees, and then relates the first two to a passage in Ezekiel
describing the propagation of one cedar from the topmost branch of
another:
Thus saith the Lord God; I will also take of the highest branch
of the tree and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his
young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon a high moun­
tain and eminent: In the mountain of the height of Israel will
I plant it: and it shall bear forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be
a goodly cedar. 9 2
Joachim quotes this passage in full and argues, like Hegel, that the
relationship of tree to branch can symbolise two forms of unity in
separation: the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the
relationship between the human race and God (humanity, Joachim
suggests, is disjoined from God by nature but united with him
through grace) . However, Joachim was primarily interested in the
former relationship and the way in which the second tree is born
1 32 S e e in g T h i ng s H i d d e n
"from the pith and topmost twigs" of the first. 93 He illustrated this
relationship in the two tree-eagles of the Liber Fiaurarum. Seen from
the right way up, these extraordinary images have the form of trees,
but when inverted we can see that they are eagles whose heads form
the root of the tree, and whose feathers the branches.94 Joachim
seems to have derived the image from Ezekiel 1 7. 3 , which describes
how an eagle took the highest branch of the cedar and planted it else­
where, and then combined it with his interpretation of the passage
about the two cedars later in the chapter. 95
Although the tree-eagles only express the relationship between
Father and Son, Joachim was concerned with the relationship
between all three members of the Trinity. He found the third tree,
the tree of the Holy Spirit, more difficult to describe because it had
the contradictory quality of being ''both completely similar and dis­
similar" to the other two trees from which it came.96 Although he
experimented with a variety of forms, Joachim's basic image of the
relationship between all three persons was not of three trees but of
a tree in which three clusters of branches emerge from a single
trunk: the first cluster representing fructification of the status of the
Father, the second that of the Son, and the third that of the Holy
Spirit. In most cases the idea that each section of the trunk culmi­
nating in these outgrowths could be considered a tree in its own
right remains implicit, but in one figure the relative independence of
each status is illustrated more explicitly. In this figure, there are
three vertical trees, linked horizontally so that the status of the Son
emerges as a single lateral branch from the trunk of the status of
the Father to form the root of another upright trunk from which the
status of the Holy Spirit emerges laterally to form the base of
the third tree. 97
Although Joachim usually conceived of the Trinity as three trees,
three sets of branches on one tree, or three trees branching off from
H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 33
one another, he was also open to analogies based on the internal con­
stitution of a tree. In the Expositio in Apocalypsim, he suggests that the
persons of the Trinity are like the root, trunk and bark of a tree : we
do not say that the three are one tree, as though there were a tree
distinct from these things, but rather that the three are j oined
together in unity in one tree so that "the three are one and the one
three".98
As Hegel's argument that each part of a tree consists of the same
substance as the whole, his image of one tree being grown from the
top of another, and his claim that a tree with three branches is both
one tree and three were all first articulated by Joachim, there is
every reason to suppose that Joachim is their ultimate source. And
this hypothesis is supported by the fact that Hegel's pages on the
Godhead in The Spirit if Christianity are directly related to Lessing's
Education if the Human Race, 99 which ends with a paean to Joachim
and his followers. So Hegel's mature acceptance of contradictory
unities, like that of father and son, appears to be derived from his
earlier exploration of the contradictory unities in separation
involved in the Incarnation and Trinity, contradictions he accepted
on the basis of the arboreal analogies of the Joachite tradition.
T h e M ak i ng of Hegel 's A p ocaly p se
Hegel's claim that the progess of history is the realisation of contra­
diction conjoins two distinct theories. The idea of progress is
unrelated and often inimical to the belief that the discovery of truth
is the revelation of contradiction. The former is usually derived
from an optimistic evaluation of the capacities of human reason,
while the latter is associated with a mystical apprehension of the
world that devalues rationality. Nevertheless, both Hegel's belief in
1 34 Seeing Things Hidden H e g e l : F r o m A p o c a l y p s e t o To t a l i t y 1 35

progress and his acceptance of contradiction can be shown to be something he made, seemingly unaware of the extent to which his
derived from important aspects of Christian theology: progress anti-Kantian apocalypse was a remaking of Joachite eschatology.
from the belief in the progressive fulfilment of prophecy in history; Hegel's age of the Spirit is evidence not of the intensive concen­
contradiction from the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation. tration of Joachite themes in Hegel's thought, but of the pervasive
This inevitably raises the question of whether Hegel derived the yet diluted influence of Joachim's ideas which allowed Hegel
conjunction of progress and contradiction, and not just the two unknowingly to reunite two divergent strands of Joachite exegesis
ideas separately, from the same source. into an ending that was just as, if not more apocalyptic than that of
On the face of it, this would seem to be the obvious explanation, Joachim. It can therefore be argued not just that Hegel was an apo­
for it can be demonstrated that the ultimate source of Hegel's belief calyptic thinker, but that his form of apocalyptic was neither a
in history as progress and his examples of the contradictory nature of novelty alien to the Christian tradition, nor its secularised residue,
the Godhead is Joachim of Fiore. Furthermore, Joachim 's vision but a genuine re-creation of that tradition.
of the progress of history as the manifestation of the Trinity would
appear to be the direct precursor of Hegel's own philosophy of his­
tory, for Hegel not only uses the Joachite sequence of the three
ages of Father, Son and Spirit, but, like Joachim, identifies the age of
the Spirit with freedom. But although tracing both the idea of
progress and the idea of contradiction back to Joachim might appear
to confirm the hypothesis that Hegel's theory is a straightforward
secularisation of Joachim's, this is unlikely to be the case, for there
is no evidence that Hegel's knowledge of Joachim was anything
more than secondhand and fragmentary. Hegel, rather than working
with an inherited pattern of a progress to a contradiction, uses the
idea of contradiction to terminate Kant's infinite progress. Thus,
although reflection on the Trinity inspired Hegel's understanding
and acceptance of contradiction, and the reincorporation of contra­
diction created an apocalyptic ending for Kant's teleology which
Hegel identified with the age of the Spirit, the resulting Trinitarian
pattern of history was a re-creation and not a transposition of the
Joachite version. Hegel reunited the ideas of progress and of a con­
tradictory, pneumatic ending by using the latter against the former:
the conjunction of the two was not something Hegel inherited but
-
4
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , Kant,
B e n j a mi n
Four angels held back the winds of destruction. Until the redeemed
had received the seal of the living God, nothing could be harmed.
But now the servants of God are sealed, and the seventh seal has
been opened. Six trumpets have sounded. A third of the trees have
burned, a third of the sea has turned to blood, a third of the heavens
has been darkened and a third of mankind has been killed. Another
angel comes down from heaven and cries out. Seven thunders reply,
and the angel swears by "him that liveth for ever and ever . . . that
time should be no longer". 1
It is a terrible prospect, but it is not the end. The angel's state­
ment has no illocutionary force and, as modern translations make
clear (the Revised Standard Version translates "time should be no
longer" as "there should be no more delay") , it is only when the sev­
enth trumpet sounds that "the mystery of God" will be finished. 2 But
for Isaac Watts, the eighteenth-century Nonconformist hymnwriter
who took Rev. 1 0. 6 as the text for "The End of Time", the first of his
discourses on The World to Come, the precise sequence of events is
irrelevant:
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 1 37
What special age or period of time in this world the prophecy
refers to, may not be so easy to determine; but this is certain,
that it may be happily applied to the period of every man's life :
for whensoever the term of our continuance in this world is
finished, our time, in the present circumstances and scenes that
attend it, shall be no more . . . 3
According to Watts, the primary significance of the text lies not in
its fulfilment as part of the eschatological drama of the book of
Revelation, but in its application to the individual soul as it moves
from time to eternity. This transition takes place at death, when
We shall be swept off the stage of this visible state into an
unseen and eternal world; eternity comes upon us at once,
and all that we enjoy, all that we do, and all that we suffer in
time, shall be no longer. 4
For each individual this ending will be a termination as total and final
as the end of the world itself, and since, after death, "we shall have
none of these sensible things around us, to employ or entertain our
5
eyes or our ears", Watts has no hesitation in identifying the soul's
passage from time to eternity with what St Peter solemnly called
"The end if all things". 6
As the end of time is followed immediately by the Judgment, and
the spiritual condition of the soul remains immutably fixed at the
moment of death with no further opportunity for moral improve­
ment, most of Watts's discourse is taken up with exhortations to
repent while there is still time
. . . lest the voice of him who swears that there shall be time no
longer, should seize us in some unexpected moment, and lest

1 38 Seeing Things Hidden
he swear in his wrath concerning us, let him that is unholy be
unholy still, and let him that isfilthy befilthy stilJ. 1
For those who fail to heed such warnings, the only prospect is a hell
where they will forever groan out their "dismal note" of lamenta­
tion, 8 but for those who "repented of sin ere the season of
repentance was past" there is the hope of "treasures more valuable
than that time which is gone, even the riches of the covenant of
grace". 9
Watts's emphasis upon the moral rather than the eschatological
significance of the book of Revelation accorded well with the out­
look of both rational Dissent in England and of Pietism in Germany,
and his discourses collected in The World to Come went through sev­
eral editions in the eighteenth century, with a German translation
appearing in 1 745 . 10 So when, in his playfully sceptical essay, "The
End of All Things" ( 1 794), Kant took the same text from Revelation
as his theme, it was natural for him to interpret it in much the same
way. Indeed, he may well have read Watts's discourse, for he fre­
quently appears to be arguing against the position that Watts adopts.
Like Watts, Kant took Rev 1 0. 6 to mean that time is brought to a
close with the angel's declaration, and he even mistakenly gave the
angel a "voice of seven thunders" to make the announcement suitably
impressive. 1 1 For Kant too, the primary focus was the idea of "pass­
ing from time into eternity", a transition supposed to take place
12
either at the death of the individual or at the end of the world.
Yet although Kant concurred with Watts's idea that the angel's
proclamation seems to mark a transition not only between time and
eternity, but also between change and immutability, and between the
sensible world and the supersensible, he denied that such transitions
are possible. Whereas Watts was happy to assume that "Days, and
months, and years . . . shall be swallowed up in a long and blissful
r
T h e E n d : Watt s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 1 39 I I
ete rnity" in which "duration has no limit", 1 3 Kant immediately
picked up on the conceptual difficulty involved. To conceive a dura­
tion as unending is not, he argued, to have any conception of its
extent: "eternity lacks time altogether as a measure of itself", so
atemporal duration, in so far as it is conceivable at all, is a purely
negative idea with no possible content. 14 And it is not just the tran­
sition from time to eternity that is unimaginable . According to
Kant, if the angel of Rev. 1 0. 6 is not speaking nonsense, "he must
have meant by these words that henceforth there would be no
change; for if there were still change in the world, time, too, would
be there". On this basis, the Last Day ''belongs as yet to time", for
there are still changes to come - the judgment and the creation of a
new earth. So the angel must mean "the end of all things as beings in
time and objects of possible experience . . . . [and] the beginning of
a duration of these self-same beings as supersensible". However,
this notion of a passage from the sensible to the supersensible is
equally problematic: "an end of all things as objects of the senses" is
inconceivable, and the idea that the moment which determines the
end of the sensible world is also the beginning of the supersensible
world is self-contradictory. 1 5 There can be no apocalyptic moment
of timeless time, no period of changeless change, no transition from
sensible to supersensible .
I f the end o f time i s unimaginable and the angel cannot bring his­
tory to a close, what does the future hold? Kant suggested unending
temporal progression with (atemporal and supersensible) unifor­
mity of moral orientation: "nothing else remains for reason except
to visualize a variation that progresses into the infinite (in time)
within the perpetual progression toward the ultimate purpose in
connection with which its disposition endures and is itself constant". 1 6
Although he acknowledged that the moral progress of humanity
lagged behind the progress of its other skills, Kant argued that "the
1 40 S e e i ng T h ing s H i d d e n
empirical proofs for the superiority of morality in our age over all
former ages" suggested that the progress of morality might overtake
all other forms of progress, given a wise world ruler. If so, the end
of the world would resemble Elijah's ascension into heaven in a
whirlwind rather than the bloodcurdling scenes of Christian escha­
tology. 1 7
Kant conceded that his vision of the future lacked popular appeal.
Being saved from eternity was less obviously appealing than being
saved for eternity, and although his teleology might be amenable to
reason and grounded in empirical observation in a way that most
eschatologies were not, he acknowledged that his heroic faith in
virtue seemed "not to have so universally vigorous an influence on
the conversion of souls as a revelatory scene attended by terrors". 1 8
The problem was that "perpetual progression and advance to the
highest good" logically entailed that "the condition in which man
now exists remains ever an evil in comparison to the better condi­
tion into which he stands ready to proceed"; in consequence, infinite
progression to the ultimate purpose inevitably also involved the
dispiriting prospect of "an unending series of evils" to be over­
come. 1 9
As Kant pointed out, the infinite perpetuation of both good and
evil required by unending progress was in a sense the equivalent of
the eternal beatitude or eternal suffering envisaged in the tradi­
tional doctrines ofheaven and hell. 20 But since an eternal heaven and
hell outside of time were just as inconceivable as the literal end of
time, the best, indeed the only, way to think about these doctrines
was in the practical, moral terms suggested by the idea of constant
human progress. In Religion within the Limits ?[Reason Alone, Kant had
suggested that the end of the world, like the end of life, "admirably
expresses the necessity of standing ready at all times for the end". 2 1
In "The End of All Things", he showed that as far as he was
T h e E n d : W a t t s , K an t , B e nj a m i n 141
concerned this was not just a matter of using eschatology for moral
exhortation (as Watts had also done), but of recognising that if
eschatology was conceived in the contradictory terms of apocalypse
it had no intelligible meaning except a moral one. It was his last and
most provocative text on religious questions. A few months later he
received a communication from the Prussian king which accused
him of undermining Christian doctrine and forbade him to write
anything further on such matters. 22
T h e A ngels of Hi s tory
Because "The End of All Things" is so unambiguously hostile to a
supernatural interpretation of Christian eschatology, it might not
seem to present an argument that could easily be retranslated into
the visionary language of apocalyptic. But what about the fate of this
"angel of history"?
His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain
of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling
wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The
angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole
what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from para­
dise . . . . [which] irresistibly propels him into the future to
which his back is turned . . . . This storm is what we call
progress. 2 3
Like Kant's misinterpretation of the angel of Revelation 1 0.6, the
angel in the ninth of Walter Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of
History" stands between history and the future. He has come to
end the destruction of what he would like to think are the last days.
1 42 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
But he cannot. Time continues; history is not at a close; the winds
of change continue to blow, bringing progress in the wake of
destruction, and driving the angel back into the future . In
Benjamin's account, the turbulent metaphors of the Apocalypse
reappear in the angel's dialectical relationship with the storm . But
unlike John the Revelator, who was told to "seal up those things
which the thunders uttered and write them not", 24 Benjamin wrote
down what the thunders said, for in the whirlwind of the storm he
seems to have heard the still small voice of Kant, arguing for
progress.
In none of the proliferating literature on Benjamin's angelology is
there any discussion of the possibility that the angel of history might
have a Christian, Kantian ancestry. This surprising omission is, one
suspects, the result of Gershom Scholem's emphasis on Benjamin's
use of Jewish sources in his identification of and with Klee's painting,
Anselus Novus. 2 5 (Benjamin considered the picture his most valuable
possession and it prompted numerous meditations, including the
ninth of the Theses.) However, there is no reason to suppose that
Benjamin's earlier projection of himself into the Anselus Novus
defines the angel of history, and it is more fruitful to interpret the
angel within the context of the Theses themselves.
According to Benjamin, the Theses embodied "thoughts of which
I can say that I have kept them in safekeeping - yes safekeeping -
from myself for some twenty years". 2 6 The earlier time to which he
referred must have been the period around the end of 1 9 1 7 when he
was planning to write his dissertation on the philosophy of history.
Since Benjamin neither embarked upon the dissertation nor pub­
lished anything else on the topic in the intervening twenty-two
years, it is natural to assume that the Theses were the fruit of this
long and secret gestation. The topic on which Benjamin had planned
to write was Kant's philosophy of history, more specifically Kant's
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , K a n t , B e nj a m i n 143
concept of the "infinite task", 2 7 and with this in mind, Benjamin
had set about reading Kant's writings on the subject. In a letter
written on 2 3 December 1 9 1 7 , he mentioned reading Kant's two
longest essays on the philosophy of history, the "Idea for a Universal
History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" and the "Perpetual
Peace", 28 and it is therefore more than likely that he also read "The
End of All Things", which in 1 9 1 2 had been reprinted alongside
these longer pieces in volume eight of the Prussian Academy's edi­
tion of Kant's works. 29
If, as seems probable, Benjamin read about the angel of Rev.
10.6 at the end of 1 9 1 7 , he is unlikely to have forgotten him, for at
the same time as he was reading Kant's philosophy of history, he
was also reading a book about angels that was to leave a lasting
impression. Anatole France's La Revolte des annes recounts the tale of
a group of disaffected angels in twentieth-century Paris who plot a
satanic uprising against God. Incarnated in the form of "Russian
nihilists , Italian anarchists, refugees, conspirators, revolutionaries
of all countries", 30 the angels plan to bring social revolution to
France, then Europe, then the whole planet, and finally the heav­
ens. Although their terrestrial campaign is a failure, the angels
successfully depose God and crown the archangel Satan in his place,
only to find that Satan adopts all God's old ways. Benjamin said that
he "found the book very good" and several motifs from the novel
reappear in his work. 3 1 Not only is France's transition from
Delacroix's paintings of angels in Saint Sulpice to the angels of his
narrative echoed in Benjamin's use of Klee's painting as a starting
point for his angelic meditations, 3 2 but the revelation that the
guardian angel of France's central character is "un esprit satanique"
is paralleled in Benjamin's disclosure that Klee's angel is associated
with the secret name Agesilaus Santander, a near anagram of Der
Anselus Satanas. 33
----
1 44 Seeing Things Hidden
However, the chief focus of Benjamin's interest in this light­
hearted novel was, rather curiously, its philosophy of history. In the
same letter in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with Kant's "Idea
for a Universal History", he wrote that France ''has a profound under­
standing of history, and it seems to me that, in this regard, he can be
truly stimulating". 34 Benjamin's surprising observation must have
been prompted by the four chapters in which the angel N ectaire
recounts the history of the universe from the earliest times to the
present. This satanic angel's view of history, which France mischie­
vously likened to Bossuet's Discours sur l'histoire universelle, offers a
striking contrast to Kant's. Whereas Kant saw the period from the
Greeks to the modern nation as "a regular progress in the constitution
of states", 35 France's angel saw a more uneven pattern: the golden age
when the ancients worshipped Satan in the form of Dionysos had
come to an end with Christianity, and although pagan wisdom had
been retrieved in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, it was lost
once more as the nineteenth century plunged back into the evils of
war and Romanticism. 36 Kant had hoped that the progress of the
human race might eventually allow it to "claim among our neighbours
in the cosmos no mean rank", 37 but Nectaire, looking down the other
end of the telescope, suggested that when Dionysos returns with the
age of gold, the human race may have disappeared, leaving the satanic
angels to instruct the race of birds in pleasure and the arts. 38
It is difficult to know exactly how Benjamin interpreted his
implied opposition between Kant and the angels in 1 9 1 7, but nev­
ertheless the terms of reference for his later observations appear
already to have been set: on the one hand, Kant's vision of an end­
less task that, in "The End of All Things", indefinitely postpones the
angel's attempt to make time stop; on the other, France's rebellious
angels who reject the idea of progress in favour of a revolutionary
return to the age of Dionysos. From the first stirrings of Benjamin's
T h e E n d : Wat t s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 145
interest in the topic, there were thus potentially two angelic roles,
and both were reinforced by Benjamin's reading of Cendrars's novel
Moravagine and its appended script "La fin du monde". In "La fin du
monde", when an angel on the fas:ade of Notre Dame blows the last
trump, time stops just as it had for Joshua at Gibeon: "Le soleil
s'immobilise . Il est midi une", 39 while in a passage quoted by
Benjamin from Moravagine, the hero recalls how in the Russian
Revolution of 1 905 the revolutionaries became angels or demons,
gradually taking on the destructive power of their guardian angels,
the Teraphim. 40
Behind both France's and Cendrars's account of angelic/ demonic
revolutionaries was another novel, Dostoevsky's The Possessed (which
Benjamin read in Rahsin's translation Die Daemonen), 41 in which the
angel who makes time stop was briefly juxtaposed with the angels or
demons who foster revolution. Stavrogin and Kirilov, two members
of the revolutionary group who are the "possessed" or "devils" of the
title, are discussing Kirilov's suicide plan, when Stavrogin asks
Kirilov:
"Do you believe in future everlasting life?"
"No, not in a future everlasting but in an everlasting life
here . There are moments , you reach moments , and time
comes to a sudden stop, and it will become eternal."
"You hope to reach such a moment?"
"Yes."
"That's hardly possible in our time," Stavrogin said , also
without the slightest irony, slowly and as though pensively. "In
the Revelation the angel swears there will be no more time."
"I know. That's very true . Clear and precise . When all
mankind achieves happiness, there will be no more time, for
there won't be any need for it. A very true thought."42
--
1 46 Seeing Things H i d d e n
For Benjamin, who claims in the Theses that "our image of happiness
is indissolubly bound up with the image of redemption",43 Kirilov's
vision of a happiness that would make time stop would eventually be
realised in the convergence of the demons of revolution with the
angel of the Apocalypse. Nevertheless, in his writings before the
Theses the two angelic roles are developed independently and, to
some degree, antithetically.
Benjamin's essay on Karl Kraus, completed in 1 93 1 , represents
this intermediate stage in the development of his angelology. The
essay contains in fragmentary form almost all the elements that
were later to be conjoined into the image of the blown-away angel,
but it is Kraus who takes on the role of the angel of Rev. 1 0.6. He is,
as Benjamin puts it, the "timeless world-disturber" who, fmding "no
redemptive fulfilment, let alone a historical resolution" in "the span
between Creation and the Last Judgement", 44 confronts the Kantian
"eternal world-improver".45 Quoting Kraus's poem, "Prayer to the
Sun at Gibeon", in which the words of Joshua are fused with those of
the angel of Rev. 1 0 . 6 , Benjamin imagines Kraus making the
announcement to which Kant had taken such exception in "The End
of All Things":
Let time stand still! Sun, be consummate!
Make great the end! Announce eternity!
Rise up with menace, letyour light boom thunder,
That our strident death be silenced. 46
To Loos's description of Kraus standing on the frontier of a new age,
Benjamin therefore opposed a picture of Kraus standing "on the
threshold of the Last Judgement".47 Like both the angel of Rev.
1 0 .6 and the angel of Thesis IX, Kraus is envisaged as standing
between human history and its judgment. Rather than surveying
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 1 47
the future, as Loos imagined him, Benjamin has Kraus with his back
to the future facing mankind: "If he ever turns his back on creation,
if he breaks off in lamentation , it is only to file a complaint at the
Last Judgement.'>48
Kraus's assumption of the role later given to the angel of history
is accompanied by the image of his writing as a silence blown back
by the winds of a storm . According to Benjamin, Kraus's writing is
"a silence turned inside out, a silence that catches the storm of
events in its back folds, billows, its livid lining turned outward".49
However, the two motifs are not yet combined as they will be in
Thesis IX, and when Kraus's writing is explicitly identified with the
angelic it is opposed not to the storm of events outside, but to the
demon within. The angel at the end of time becomes the rhyme at
the end of the line :
Just as blessedness has its source at the end of time, [poetry]
has its at the end of the line. Rhyme - two putti bearing the
demon to its grave . . . . Its sword and shield - concept and
guilt - have fallen from its hands to become emblems beneath
the feet of the angel that killed it. 50
And as rhyme is both the source and the end of poetry, so in Kraus's
writing as a whole the demon is mastered "where origin and
destruction come together" and "his conqueror stands before him:
not a new man; a monster, a new angel". 51 As the manuscript ver­
sion of this passage makes clear, these reflections follow from Kraus's
poem "Prayer to the Sun at Gibeon". 5 2 So, despite the Talmudic
gloss which follows, the new angel, identified a few lines earlier with
Klee's Angelus Novus, can only be the one whose announcement of
eternity is there appropriated by Kraus.
When Benjamin finally brought his thoughts on the philosophy of
1 48 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
history out of safekeeping, there was clear evidence of continuity
with his earlier interests and reading. Benjamin's ongoing preoccu­
pation with Kant's concept of the "infmite task" is seen in his attack
on the Social Democrats in Thesis XIII. According to Benjamin, the
Social Democrats picture progress as (i) "the progress of mankind
itself " rather than just the progress of human abilities; (ii) something
boundless, "in keeping with the infinite perfectibility of mankind";
(iii) something irresistible, which automatically pursues its course. 53
Not only was each of these doctrines explicitly formulated by Kant
and expressed in "The End of All Things", but, as Benjamin points
out, they all presuppose an unlimited temporal progression, and
arguing against progress meant arguing against that progression:
The concept of the historical progress of mankind cannot be
sundered from the concept of its progression through a homo­
geneous, empty time. A critique of the concept of such a
progression must be the basis of any criticism of the concept of
progress itself. 54
For Benjamin, the terms of the debate about progress were therefore
precisely those set by Kant in "The End of All Things": on the one
hand, an unending temporal progression; on the other, the opposite
of that progression, "a Messianic cessation of happening". 55 Just as
Kant acknowledged that his conception of the "infinite task" was in
tension with the Christian conception of a literal end of time, so
Benjamin realised that Kant's infinite progress was at odds with any
hope of redemption from history.As he observed in Thesis XVI: "A
historical materialist carmot do without the notion of a present
which is not a transition, but in which time stands still and has come
to a stop."56
Read within this context, there can be little doubt that the angel
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , K an t , B e nj a m i n 1 49
of history is meant to effect a "Messianic cessation of happening".
According to Benjamin, not only does the angel have the messianic
role of awakening the dead and making whole what has been broken,
but, since he hopes to stay where he is rather than be driven into the
future, the angel's mission must also involve time's discontinuation.
Like the French revolutionaries of Thesis XV who fired on the clocks
"pour arreter le jour", 57 the angel of Thesis IX is meant to make time
stop, and he is only prevented from doing so by the storm which
blows him back into the future.
A gainst P rogress
If Benjamin's angel of history is the angel of Rev. 1 0.6 driven back by
Kant's argument for infinite progress, the significance of Benjamin's
identification of progress and catastrophe also becomes clearer. In
Kant's realisation that the concept of infinite progress is inseparable
from that of the unending evils that make it possible, there may be
found the origin of Benjamin's claim that "catastrophe is progress;
progress is catastrophe", for Benjamin's obser vation that "The con­
cept of progress should be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That
things 'just keep going on' is the catastrophe"58 is no more than a
negative restatement of Kant's argument that the present condition
of the world is always evil relative to that which succeeds it. But to
Benjamin, the indefinite coupling of progress and catastrophe was an
intolerable prospect, not least because the continuing evils would
inevitably be borne by a different section of humanity to that which
effected and benefited from their improvement.As he put it at the
end of Thesis VII, human achievements "owe their existence not
only to the efforts of the great minds and talents who have created
them, but also to the anonymous toil of their contemporaries. There
--
1 50 Seeing Things Hidden
is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a docu­
ment of barbarism."59 Kant had suggested that progress's
perpetuation of both good and evil was the equivalent of an eternal
heaven and hell, 60 but Benjamin saw that the distribution of goods
and evils might be unequal, that progress might mean beatitude for
some and an eternal hell for the rest.
Against the conception of the future as a "progression through a
homogeneous, empty time" in which progress and catastrophe, civil­
isation and barbarism, are forever perpetuated in the ineradicable
suffering of the toiling masses, Benjamin juxtaposes another con­
ception of history - not an eschatology in which the future is
foreclosed by eternity, but a political messianism in which the rev­
olutionary classes make the continuum of history explode. This
apocalyptic vision is differentiated both from Kant's conception of
infinite progress and from conceptions of the future that are in some
respects closer to Benjamin's own. As Benjamin's attempt to dis­
tance himself from the Social Democrats reveals, it is not only their
Kantianism to which he objects, but their Hegelianism, for the prob­
lem is not just that they stretch out progress to infinity, but that they
put any faith in progress at all.
To understand Benjamin's negative response to the idea of
progress, it is necesary to consider the mechanics of progress in
Kant and Hegel. For Kant, the transition from an animal to a human
existence, "the first steps from barbarism to culture", were the result
of "the unsocial sociability of men". 61 In society, man feels himself to
be "more than the developed form of his natural capacities", but
"heartless competitive vanity . . . the insatiable desire to possess and
to rule" leads him at the same time to oppose all others, and it is this
selfish desire "to achieve a rank among his fellows whom he cannot
tolerate but from whom he cannot withdraw" that develops man's
talents and tastes. 6 2 According to Kant, therefore, it is the selfish
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 151
desire for domination that is the engine of progress. But to Hegel,
this seemed hopelessly one-sided. 63 Hegel agreed that the transi­
tion to fully human consciousness and the development of human
capacities took place through the relationship of competition, but
pointed out that competition for rank and power would of its very
nature prevent the uniform development of humanity. As he
described it in the famous section of the PhenomenoloBY ifSpirit on the
relation of master and slave, the primal competition for recognition
leads not to equal development for all, but to the man who fears
death more than he desires recognition becoming the slave, and the
man who is prepared to stake his life for the sake of recognition
becoming the master. The master then sets the slave to work for him,
with the paradoxical result that the slave, who transforms nature
through his work, is the one who develops and achieves recognition
for himself, while the master, who does no work and whose inter­
action with nature is mediated through the slave, can only look to
recognition from the slave, who, being a mere thing in his master's
eyes, can never provide the recognition the master desires. 64
Benjamin, who appears to have viewed Hegel's master-and-slave
dialectic through Marx, emphasises that the struggle is for material
rather than spiritual goods, and quotes Hegel against himself in the
I
I
epigraph to Thesis IV: "Seek for food and clothing first, then the
Kingdom of God shall be added unto you."65 Glossed by Benjamin,
this becomes the class struggle, "a fight for the crude and material
things without which no refined and spiritual things could exist".66
But, like Hegel's master-and-slave dialectic, the benefits do not all
go to one side:
it is not in the form of the spoils which fall to the victor that
the latter [spiritual things] make their presence felt in the class
struggle. They manifest themselves in this struggle as courage,
 1 52 Seeing Things Hidden
humour, cunn ing, and fortitude. They have retroactive force
and will constantly call in question every victory, past and
present, of the rulers. 67
Although Benjamin was willing to acknowledge that the struggle
also offered something to the losers whose anonymous toil sup­
ports the triumphal procession of the ruling class, he did not see
such toil as itself the route to salvation. In Benjamin's account, this
is the position of the Social Democrats who conjoin the Kantian
vision of infinite progress with the Hegelian belief that it is the
transformation of nature through labour (rather than , as Kant
believed, the desire for domination) that drives that progress, 68 and
so arrive at the absurd conclusion that industrial labour offers the
proletariat infinite benefits. As the nineteenth-century socialist
philosopher Josef Dietzgen (quoted by Benjamin in Thesis XI) put it:
"The saviour of modern times is called work. The . . . improve­
ment . . . of labour constitutes the wealth which is now able to
accomplish what no redeemer has ever been able to do.'>69 Benjamin,
however, complained (as Marx had done of Hegel) that the Social
Democrats saw only the positive side of labour and not the negative.
The worker exploited nature and the capitalist exploited him, so,
whatever its benefits, labour could only ever perpetuate exploitation
of both kinds. 70 Work might bring progress of a sort, but it also
brought catastrophe.
As far as Benjamin is concerned, it is not enough that progress
should be brought to a stop rather than forever postpone the end of
history; progress to an end is just as worthless as unending progress.
The messianic cessation of happening that Benjamin envisages there­
fore also differs fundamentally from the political eschatology to
which it stands closest in time and place, Kojeve's end of history.
Benjamin never attended Kojeve's seminars at the Ecole Pratique des
-
T h e E n d : Wat t s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 153
Hautes Etudes from 1 93 3 to 1 939, but his friend Georges Bataille
(with whom he left the Angelus Novus in 1 940) attended for three
years ( 1 934--5 , 1 935-6, and 1 93 7-8) during the period in which he
saw Benjamin regularly at the College de Sociologie, 7 1 and so
Benjamin is unlikely to have been completely unaware of what
Kojeve was doing.
Kojeve grasped, as the Social Democrats (and, indeed, Hegel) did
not, that Hegel's master-and-slave dialectic contained within it the
solution to the problem which, according to Kant in "The Idea for a
Universal History", would prevent the complete realisation of
human destiny and so indefinitely prolong progress towards it. The
problem is that the very desire for mastery necessary for human
development also prevents its complete realisation. In order to enjoy
the benefits of the perfect political commonwealth in which "there
is mutual opposition among the members, together with the most
exact definition of freedom and fixing of its limits so that it may be
consistent with the freedom of others", 72 Kant argued that man
required a master to "break his will and force him to obey a will that
is universally valid". 73 Without a master, people would be inclined
to follow their selfish impulses and exempt themselves from even
the best laws, but given that the master is himself a man with selfish
impulses, he too requires a master to break his will. So who then
will master the highest master? According to Kant, a complete solu­
tion will never be found. To make progress people must want to be
dominant themselves, but to enjoy progress they must be domi­
nated. The condition of progress for all is therefore the existence of
one whose desire for domination is not dominated. Ideally this
master should somehow contain within himself the obedience that
comes from being dominated, but, from Kant's perspective, that is
impossible, for, as he puts it, "out of the crooked timber of human­
ity nothing straight was ever made". 74
 1 54 Seeing Things Hidden
As Perry Anderson has pointed out,75 Kant's use of this phrase
hardly justifies its adoption as a motto for Isaiah Berlin's pessimism,
but, even so, its deployment is significant. 76 Kant had just described
how, thanks to their mutually restrained desire for dominance,
human beings will, like trees in a wood seeking to deprive one
another of air and sunlight, grow straight and tall rather than
crooked and twisted. 77 Because it is the constraint of others that pre­
vents trees from following their natural inclination to grow crooked,
the master who is not so constrained is not just free to grow crooked
but bound to do so. Kant's "crooked wood" is thus more than a
handy metaphor for the intractability of human nature ; it is an
emblem of selfishness and evil - the snake in the tree. The unmas­
tered master does not just function like the residuum of evil that
' Kant elsewhere posits as a necessary condition of infinite progress,
( he is the positive expression of that condition. The crooked desire
,r
I
,r for mastery is the residual evil, and it is for precisely this reason that
'·
,,�
Kant cannot let it go: a crooked plank is needed to stop mankind
from drowning in eternity.
In Kojeve's mind, Hegel's reversal of the Kantian relation between
mastery and progress provided the answer to this last problem. By
making progress depend upon the asymmetrical relation of mastery,
Kant had created an impediment to its perfect realisation. In con­
trast, according to Kojeve, Hegel's dialectic meant that even if
mastery is "the sine qua non of historical progress, it is the Slave's
work that realizes and perfects it". 78 Although the master was needed
in order to set the slave to work, after that "idle Mastery is an
impasse, [and] laborious Slavery . . . is the source of all human,
social, historical progress".79 Through work, the slave obtains not the
unsatisfactorily asymmetrical recognition that the master won in the
original fight, but a reflexive recognition independent of the master.
The master therefore becomes superfluous, so although "the end
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 155
of History is the synthesis of Mastery and Slavery", 80 that synthesis
may be achieved solely by the slave when he risks his life, either in a
second fight with the master, or through the institution of terror. In
contrast, the master does not work, "he dies rather than cease to be
Master. The final fight which transforms the Slave into Citizen,
overcomes Mastery in a nondialectical fashion: the Master is simply
killed and he dies as Master."8 1 For Kojeve, the master was merely
"the ' catalyst' of the History that will be realized, completed, and
' revealed' by the Slave or ex-Slave who has become a Citizen", and
so the final problem of the unmastered master could be solved,
swiftly and neatly, by the guillotine. 8 2
From Benjamin's perspective, Kojeve's Hegelian Marxism would
have been just as objectionable as the Social Democrats' Kantian
Marxism. Although Kojeve proclaimed the end of history rather
than unending progress, he still believed that the route to the end lay
in progress through work:83
Work is Time, and that is why it necessarily exists in time: it
requires time. The transformation of the Slave, which will
allow him to surmount his dread, his fear of the Master, by
surmounting the terror of death - this transformation is long
and painful. 84
To Benjamin, the threefold equation of work, progress and time
seemed absurd. As far as he was concerned, the idea of redemption
was tied to destruction rather than progress, and to immediate hap­
piness rather than deferred gratification. Redemption, he argued,
was indissolubly bound up with happiness, and since our image of
happiness was "thoroughly coloured by the time to which the course
of our existence has assigned us", our redemption must be con­
ceived in the same terms. 85

1 56 Seeing Things Hidden
According to Benjamin, progress and catastrophe, civilisation
and barbarism, and, by implication, mastery and slavery continue
until "the Messiah comes as the subduer of Antichrist". 8 6 But
whereas Kojeve claimed that progress was the necessary precondi­
tion of the master's defeat, Benjamin followed Lotze in arguing that
progress which did not lead directly to its destination was not worth
thinking about. 87 The messiah subdues the Antichrist by fighting
him, not by working for him. So, for Benjamin, the idea of redemp­
tion was interconnected with that of revolutionary destruction, just
as it had been for Dostoevsky's revolutionaries in The Possessed,
for Robespierre, Blanqui and the Spartacists. 88
A p ocaly p se N ow
' .
' Perhaps revolutions are the human race, who is travelling in this train,
r
r
Benjamin's litany of revolutionaries committed to the immediate
l
� . destruction of Antichrist through direct action represents the
antithesis of Kojeve's slave whose victory over the master comes
only as the culmination of centuries of progress. Although he agrees
with Marx that the oppressed class "appears as the last enslaved
class, as the avenger that completes the task of liberation in the
name of generations of the downtrodden", 8 9 Benjamin does not
view this as the present being redeemed by the future but as the past
redeemed by the present. This might seem to amount to the same
thing, yet Benjamin is insistent that it is not a matter of one time
being redeemed by another, but of all times being redeemed from
outside of time. As Benjamin puts it in Thesis XIV:
History is the subject of a structure whose site is not homo­
geneous, empty time, but time filled by the presence of the
now Uetztzeit] . Thus, to Robespierre ancient Rome was a past
T h e E n d : Watt s , K a n t , B e n j a m i n 1 57
charged with the time of the now which he blasted out of the
continuum of history. The French revolution viewed itself as
Rome reincarnate. It evoked ancient Rome the way fashion
evokes costumes of the past. Fashion has a flair for the topical,
no matter where it stirs in the thickets of long ago; it is a
tiger's leap into the past. This jump, however, takes place in an
arena where the ruling class gives the commands. The same
leap in the open air of history is the dialectical one, which is
how Marx understood the revolution. 90
and
In this alarmingly compressed series of images Benjamin identifies
his own position with that of Marx; however, his notes reveal that he
realised the tension with Marx's account: "Marx says that revolutions
are the locomotives of world history. Things are entirely different.
reaching for the emergency brake." 9 1 To make sense of Benjamin's
daring reworking of Marx's theory of revolution it is necessary to
conjoin Benjamin's two seemingly unconnected metaphors for the
revolution - the tiger's leap and the emergency brake. The application
of the emergency brake is dearly just another way of describing that
"Messianic cessation of happening" foreshadowed by the announce­
ment of the angel of Revelation 1 0.6, and by Kraus the "timeless
world-destroyer" who proclaims "Let time stand still". However,
Benjamin here emphasises that this cessation is not effected by the train
arriving at its destination, or in response to an external signal to stop,
but by those on the train themselves. Implicit in this is the idea that
those on the train are not so much passengers heading for a destination
they have chosen, but "the last enslaved class" being transported in the
name of progress from one catastrophe to the next. Their only hope
lies not (as Kojeve would have it) in killing the driver when they
arrive at their destination, but in stopping the train at once.
 1 58 Seeing Things Hidden
The image of the train stopped by the slaves it is transporting is a
reworking (and, in 1 940, a poignant one) of another more ancient
image of redemption. In the story of Dionysos and the sailors, the
infant Dionysos is snatched by pirates who sail away with their cap­
tive, but then something miraculous happens (in Ovid's version) :
"The ship stands still upon the waves, as if held in dry dock."92 The
crew try to sail on, but to no avail, for as the ship remains motion­
less, ivy gradually forms around the mast and a tiger (in most
versions Bacchus himself) leaps out, driving the terrified crew over­
board. 93 For Ernst Jiinger in Der Waldgang, the Dionysian tiger's
leap was later to be an image of hope for passengers trapped on the
luxury cruise of post-history, 94 but for Benjamin, it functioned as a
metaphor for the escape from history. The tiger's leap into the past
( .
blasts the past out of the continuum of history; past and present are
,, united in the timeless time of apocalypse.
r
f
J Underlying Benjamin's implicit recourse to the story of Dionysos
(
and the pirates is not just the Nietzschean equation of Dionysian
ecstasy with timeless primordial unity, and the Hegelian description
of the True as a Dionysian revel which Benjamin echoed at the
end of his essay on surrealism,95 but also the philosophy of history
to which Benjamin had first been attracted as an alternative to
Kant's - Nectaire's "universal history" in France's La Revolte des anges.
In Nectaire's account, history ends when "le grand Dionysos
viendra, suivi de ses faunes et de ses bacchantes, rapprendre a la
terre la joie et la beaute, et ramener l' age d' or". 96 It was therefore
quite natural for Benjamin to identify the revolutionary tradition of
France's angels and Dostoevsky's devils with the Dionysian tiger's
leap; he did not have to equate them on the basis of the analogy
between applying the emergency brake and the magical motion­
lessness of Dionysos 's ship; in France's text, the revolutionaries are
already identified as Dionysian and satanic.
-
T h e E n d : Wa t t s , K a n t , B e nj a m i n 159
What happens in the Theses i s that the two angelic roles which
Benjamin had first encountered at the end of 1 9 1 7 are tentatively
brought into alignment. The angel of Rev. 1 0 . 6 and France's angelic
revolutionaries, Cendrars's angel of Notre Dame and the demonic
angels of the Russian Revolution, the Angelus Novus and Kraus's
demon - each pair rehearses the same essential division : on the one
hand, the cessation of time, on the other, a demonic revolutionary
destructiveness. Benjamin implicitly unites the two by allotting the
role of the angel who makes time stop to those other angels, the rev­
olutionaries. The angel of history may be blown away by progress in
Thesis IX, but only so that his function can be given to others: in
XIV, it is performed by the tiger's leap; in XV, by firing on the
clocks; in XVI, it is made explicit, the historical materialist cannot
do without the idea that "time stands still and has come to a stop".
Kirilov's suicidal fancy has become a political manifesto;
Dostoevsky's devils are to be the angels of history.
One result of transferring the power to make time stop to those
who are enslaved by time's continuation is the radical reversal of the
Kantian move which underlay the theories of Hegel, Marx and
Kojeve. Like Lotze, Benjamin believed that "history is not fated to
make such progress longitudinally, but rather in an upward direction
at every single one of its points".97 In The Possessed, Kirilov had found
happiness unexpectedly at one such point:
"When did you find out that you were so happy?"
"Last week, on Tuesday - no, on Wednesday, because it was
already Wednesday - during the night."
"In what connexion?"
"Don't remember. It just happened. Was walking about the
room - makes no difference . I stopped the clock. It was
twenty-three minutes to three."
 1 60 Seeing Things Hidden T h e E n d : Watt s , K an t , B e n j a m i n 161

"As a symbol of the fact that time must stop?"
Kirilov said nothing. 98
Similarly, for Benjamin, redemption could come at any moment,
without warning or preparation; as he put it in the Theses : every
second of time is "the strait gate through which the Messiah might
enter".99
The idea that timelessness and redemption are accessible from
every moment of history had been rejected by Kant in "The End of
All Things". Watts, sensing eternity lying on the other side of the
thin barrier between life and death, had asked:
incremental degrees, and Kojeve's vision of the Slave eventually
working up his courage to defeat the Master, were both irrelevant.
In Benjamin's account, everything is turned from the horizontal to
the vertical : not only are progress and catastrophe present in each
and every moment of time, so too is the possibility of redemption
from both. The apocalypse of timeless time is not an eschatological
possibility but a present one. Benjamin puts the theology back into
Marx by taking out Kant and Hegel and replacing them with Watts;
for Benjamin too the angel of history is always standing at the gate,
but now he has a home-made bomb in his hand.

. . . hastening hourly to the end of the life of man. . . . Am I

fit to be born into the world of spirits through the strait gate
(
( . of death . . . and made meet to enter into that unseen world,
I
:f where there shall be no more of these revolutions of days and
�.
:( years, but one eternal day?100

But for Kant, such "pious talk" of passing from time into eternity at
any moment was literally nonsense. 1 0 1 The apocalyptic moment
when time stopped and eternity began could never occur, let alone
remain perpetually imminent. Redemption was to be stretched
across the unending history of the world, forever approached but
never finally reached . Unlike Kant, Hegel and Marx accepted that
the long history of progress would eventually achieve an apocalyptic
resolution, yet for them too the strait gate was to be found only at
the end of the long road of human history.
For Benjamin, writing from an internment camp in the opening
days of the Second World War, redemption was needed not at some
indefinite time in the future, but now. Kant's longitudinal perspec­
tive in which civilisation was forever succeeding barbarism by
 PA RT T W O

Vision a n d To t a l i t y

'
(
I .
i(

L
t
- -

T h e W o r l d I n Hi d i n g
A n t i - Vi s u a l H o li s m

I
(
( We talk about hiddenness in visual terms, and we use the vocab­
r .
,f ulary of hiding to describe our experience of visual and cognitive
r
' disjunction. Translating hiddenness into other sensory terms does
r .
not seem to work. We speak of not being able to see the facts (per­
haps even when they are staring us in the face) , not of being unable
to taste or touch those facts; there are unseen truths, yet no unsmelt
truths; we look unsuccessfully for knowledge, but rarely listen for it.
Conversely, the vocabulary of hiddenness seems to be of limited
use in the description of non-visual sensation. A boat sails into the
l:
•'
distance until it becomes hidden from view, but a tone rising to an
ever higher pitch merely becomes inaudible. If we say that the sound
of the baby's crying is hidden by the noise of the engine, our mean­
ing may be clear but our choice of words is not quite right. A
metaphor such as "drowned" seems preferable, perhaps because
when one sound becomes lost in another it becomes indistinguish­
able rather than inaudible, like an individual unnoticed in a sea of
faces. 1 In music, too, there are no hidden sounds; the inaudible is
 1 66 S e e i ng T h i ng s H i d d e n
just that, while the "hidden" fifths and octaves that students of coun­
terpoint are taught to avoid are not hidden at all, just easily missed.
Because of its connection with disguising appearances it seems nat­
ural to say that someone has disguised the sound of their voice, but
less natural to claim that someone is disguising the sound of an
instrument they are playing or a machine they are operating.
With smell and taste things are similar. Someone with a discrim­
inating palate might say that one taste or aroma masked or disguised
another, but her use of these terms would be verging on the
metaphorical. To speak literally of hidden tastes and smells is slightly
strained. The problem here is again that the process is perhaps one
of transformation rather than concealment. You can see through a
disguise to what is disguised because what is disguised remains
unchanged within the disguise, but you cannot smell or taste some­
('
( thing through an attempt to disguise it, only despite the attempt to
r .
f disguise it. In so far as a taste or smell is disguised it is usually trans­
' formed.
r ,
r In the case of touch even the metaphorical use of the vocabulary
� of hiddenness seems out of place. If you cannot reach the top shelf
�·.
of the cupboard it may be inaccessible but it is not hidden; and irre­
spective of whether you can feel the body through the clothes,
i,
clothes do not hide the body from the touch in quite the same way
·'
that they conceal the body from the gaze. Touch has a particularity
l:•' lacking in the other senses, especially sight. There is almost no cir­
r·
'· cumstance in which something is tangible but somehow less tangible
than it might be. And while textures may be modified to deceive the
touch, it would be stretching things to suggest that varnish disguises
the roughness of wood, or moisturiser the dryness of the skin.
With all the senses other than sight the underlying problem is the
same. It seems difficult to effect a meaningful disjunction between
experience and cognition while retaining any tension between the
T h e Wo r l d in H i d i ng : A nt i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 67
potentiality of the one and the actuality of the other. Perceiving
something while being unable to hear, smell, taste or touch it, does
not strike us as unusual. Much of our everyday experience is of
seemingly silent, tasteless objects that are beyond our reach, so we
do not feel our inability to sense them to be a lack, or a withholding.
Similarly, experiencing a sound, aroma or texture that we cannot
identify does not strike us as a problem either. Our ability to dis­
criminate sounds, smells, tastes and textures is comparatively
limited (or, at least, undeveloped), and whereas our experience of
the visual field is of discrete objects differentially located in a unified
space, with our other senses (except touch) we experience a unified
and undifferentiated object in which we find it difficult to separate
and identifY the individual sources that have contributed to the over­
all effect, let alone their relationship to one another. With hearing,
smell and taste, it is therefore difficult to construct a model of ex­
perience in which there is a clear enough distinction between
appearance and reality for the issue ofhiddenness to arise. The close
relationship between hiddenness and sight is perhaps best illustrated
by the difference between two children's games : Hide and Seek and
Blind Man's Buff. In Hide and Seek everyone hides so that they
cannot be seen by the person who is seeking to discover them. In
Blind Man's Buff the objective is similar, but the person who is
trying to catch the others is blindfolded, and so no one hides;
instead, they stand around the disorientated Blind Man trying to
deceive him with misleading aural and tactile hints to their where­
abouts, but these calls and prods cannot be said to hide, conceal or
even disguise the true location of the individual, for the Blind Man
cannot see them anyway. In the kingdom of the blind, it seems,
nothing is hidden.
The closeness of the connection between vision and cognition is
not due only to the importance of visual perception in constituting
 1 68 Seeing Things Hidden
r-
:
I
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 69

our understanding of the world, it is also the result of the wide­ extent, of that required for us fully to comprehend what we see, or

spread, but perhaps less than universal, assumption that knowledge to fully see what we comprehend, that we encounter a world in

is a form of sight. As numerous authors have noted, the vocabulary hiding.

of cognition is replete with visual metaphors. In even the most

abstract matters we seek illumination and insight; we try to inspect,
to gain an overview, to see what is meant, to get things into focus, V ision and T o tali ty
to look at things from another perspective and so on. In conse­
quence, we not only consider visual perception without recognition If experiencing the world in hiding is a function of a particular kind

to be anomalous, but also deem cognition without a percept to be of imbalance between what we see and the whole of what there is to

strange as well. If we know something we ought to be able to see it, see, the degree to which we do in fact encounter the world as hidden

to bring it before the mind's eye. should be reflected in the relative values that we ascribe to vision and

If the idea of hiddenness seems inextricably linked to visuality, it totality. If we place equal confidence in both, then this implies that

is also deeply intertwined with that of totality, for the experience of we are confident that we can see everything; if we retain a belief in

hiddenness is always one of incompleteness, a ratio between what is the visual, but dismiss holistic approaches to knowledge, it may sug­
( ' , ,,
' and what might be known. The degree to which we experience the gest that we experience a plurality of discontinuous entities ; if we
I
1
world as hidden is therefore liable to be a function of the relationship dismiss both visuality and holism, we are liable to seem comfortable
( between the totality of the world and our capacity to see it. If we with our own ignorance; but if we denigrate vision while insisting
r
( have an accurate and unimpeded view of the whole, then, obvi­ upon a holistic approach to our knowledge of the world, then it may
� ously, nothing is hidden. However, the relevant relationship is not well indicate that we see the world only in hiding.
�',

necessarily that between our vision and the totality of the world To get a sense of the relative values ascribed to vision and total­

itself; it is that between our vision and whatever totality is relevant ity in contemporary thought, there is no better place to start than
to our understanding of what we see. If it is assumed that the world with Martin Jay's two magnificent surveys: Marxism and Totality,
consists of numerous self-contained units, and that our perception of which examines the adventures of the concept of totality since

each is as complete as it needs to be, then our experience of the Lukacs, and Downcast Eyes, which explores the concept of the visual

world will not be that of a world in hiding, but of a plurality of in France during the same period. 2 In the words of Lukacs, "The cat­

worlds. Even if our vision is such that we cannot see more than one egory of totality, the all pervasive supremacy of the whole over the

of these monads at once, and we never experience their multiplicity parts, is the essence of the method which Marx took over from

as a plurality, the plurality will not be hidden from us , for the Hegel and brilliantly transformed into the foundations of a wholly

uncompleted experience of discontinuous objects is an experience new science."3 However, according to Jay, the concept of totality has

not of hiddenness but of simple non-experience. It is only if our been progressively undermined by both theoretical and historical

capacity to experience the whole falls short, either in accuracy or in developments with the eventual result that
--
1 70 Seeing Things Hidden
if one had to find a common denominator among the major
figures normally included in the post-structuralist category ­
Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Roland
Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Franc,;ois Lyotard, Julia Kristeva,
Philippe Sollers and their comrades avant la lettre, Georges
Bataille, Maurice Blanchot and Pierre Klossowski - it would
have to be their unremitting hostility towards totality. 4
Derrida offered a reality of "holes" rather than "wholes"; Foucault
substituted the analysis of rarity for the search for totalities; Lacan
denigrated the supposed wholeness of the mirror stage; Barthes
attacked the ideology of the unified text; Bataille wrote of fleeing
' from "the horror of reducing being to totality".
( · .. In Downcast Eyes and several earlier essays, Jay interprets con­
(.
( . temporary cultural change in terms of a shift in the cultural
r
' ·,
significance and forms of vision. The basic premiss is the assumption
that vision is the dominant sense of the modern era, and Cartesian
r
J' perspectivalism the dominant model of vision . But, according
� to Jay in the "Empire of the Gaze",5 the "anti-visual discourse" of
"',
twentieth-century thought, and in particular the work of Michel
Foucault, has now pointed the way to an "anti-ocular counter­
enlightenment". 6 And so Jay concludes that "We may well be
entering a new period of distrusting vision, an era reminiscent of the
[:
"'
other great iconoclastic moments in Western culture."7
Downcast Eyes features many of the same characters as Marxism and
Totality, but the script has been changed and the common denomi­
nator is now hostility to vision: Bataille is not in flight from totality
but abandoning "the world of the civilized and its light"; Barthes
longs for abstinence from images ; Lacan dismisses the specularity of
the mirror stage; Foucault subverts the empire of the gaze; Derrida
finds insights in blindness. In this version of post-war French
r>
.
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 171
.,��:
,:' ":-
intellectual history, a succession o f thinkers grapples not with
Lukacs's concept of totality but with Cartesian perspectivalism.
: ": 1
What are we to make of the differing interpretations of recent
thought given in Downcast Eyes and Marxism and Totality? Do the two
books offer competing or complementary perspectives?
The answer given to this question depends on the nature of the
connection between the concepts of vision and totality. There are
several ways to construe the relationship. One possibility, implied by
Jay's identification of his synoptic method with holism and ocular­
centrism and by the parallels between his books on both subjects, is
that the two are inextricably linked and the double denigration of
both vision and totality is a symptom of an increasing pessimism
about the possibility of knowledge itself. To sustain this interpreta­
tion it might be argued that totality is the true object of the
all-seeing eye, and the eye the only organ capable of comprehending
the unity of experience; in which case "the dissolution of holism" and
"the denigration of vision" are just different ways of describing the
same process. Jay assumes something of the kind in his binocular
reading of Sartre. InDowncast Eyes, he quotes Sartre's statement in
Being and Nothingness that "no point of view on the totality is con­
ceivable" because "no consciousness, not even God's, can . . .
apprehend the totality as such"8 as an indication that Sartre "res­
olutely refused to posit a redemptive notion of the visual"; 9 while in
Marxism and Totality, he suggests that because there was no "external
observer in the form of a transcendent God, who could totalize
humanity as a whole through His gaze",
10 Sartre believed that
"humanity must remain forever fragmented and in conflict". 1 1 In the
case of Sartre, who argued that totality (as opposed to totalisation)
can exist only "as the correlative of an act of imagination", 1 2 Jay's
willingness to invert his earlier argument seems warranted . But
there are instances in which it would not be. If, as Jay seems to
....
1 72 Seeing Things Hidden
follow Goldmann in believing, 1 3 Heidegger's Being (Sein) and
Lukacs's totality are pretty much identical, 14 then Heidegger's prob­
lematisation of the relation of vision and Being suggests a rather
different relationship between vision and totality. In his influential
essay "The Age of the World Picture", Heidegger condemned
modernity for turning reality into a picture to be seen by a dis­
tanced spectator. There is, he argued , no essential difference
between "a picture of the world" and "the world conceived and
grasped as a picture": the expressions '"world picture of the modern
age ' and 'modern world picture' both mean the same thing", and
"both assume something that could never have been before, namely
a medieval and an ancient world picture". 1 5 It is, Heidegger suggests,
not the difference between modern and pre-modern world pictures
. .!.. :
that defines the modern age, but "the fact that the world becomes a
picture at all". For Heidegger, there is thus something close to an
inverse relationship between Being and the objectifying gaze of
modernity, for "Where anything that is has become the object of
representing, it first incurs in a certain manner a loss of Being."1 6 In
contrast, for Heidegger's revered pre-Socratics,
That which is does not come into being at all through the fact
that man first looks upon it . . . . Rather, man is the one who
is looked upon by that whi�h is; he is the one who is - in
company with itself - gathered toward presencing, by that
which opens itself. 1 7
Although Heidegger does not really fall within the purview of
Downcast Eyes or Marxism and Totality, he occupies a pivotal position
in the two narratives, and is presented both as making one of the
most influential contributions to anti-ocularcentrism and as a
"potent, if sometimes unacknowledged, stimulus to holistic
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 73
thought". 1 8 But if, as Heidegger's argument might be taken to imply,
totality and post-Cartesian vision stand in a zero-sum relation, the
double narratives of Downcast Eyes and Marxism and Totality seem
problematic. Despite acknowledging the extent of Heidegger's
influence, Jay does not identify any other anti-visual holists (except,
perhaps, Merleau-Ponty) . And when he cites Derrida, Irigaray and
Rorty as echoing Heidegger's "attack on enframing in the age of the
worldview", 19 he does so without implying that they are pitting
vision against totality. It is, of course, possible to echo (if not adopt)
Heidegger's anti-ocularcentrism without endorsing his holism, but
the fact that Jay depicts parallel streams flowing from a Heideggerian
watershed inevitably raises questions about the way in which he has
mapped the terrain.
A nti - v isual H olis m
Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror rif Nature provided a synthesis of
Continental and Anglo-American philosophy that helped to articu­
late the philosophical assumptions of an entire generation of people
who were not professional philosophers. The book also seems to
have acted as a stimulus for Jay's research on anti-visual discourses,
and Jay uses it both as a source for his description of modern ocu­
larcentrism, and as an example of postmodern anti-ocularity.
Rorty's work therefore provides an ideal testing ground for the rela­
tions between vision and totality in recent intellectual history.
Rorty is anti-visual in that the main purpose of his book is to
suggest that "A historical epoch dominated by Greek ocular
metaphors may . . . yield to one in which the philosophical vocab­
ulary incorporating these metaphors seems as quaint as the
animistic vocabulary of pre-classical times.'>2 0 Citing the work of,
-

1 74 Seeing Things Hidden T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 75

amongst others, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Davidson, Rorty Davidson's rejection of the "dualism of scheme and content, of
suggests that these philosophers show us that "We must get the organizing system and something waiting to be organized" is of par­
visual, and in particular the mirroring, metaphors out of our speech ticular relevance because Rorty explicitly links Davidson's move
altogether."2 1 However, Rorty's synthesis is also explicitly holistic, away from the scheme-content model with Heidegger's transcen­
and it is his holism that fuels his hostility to vision . As he states, "A dence of the subj ect-object model. 25 There is good reason for
holistic approach to knowledge is not a matter of antifoundational­ making this connection, for it is not difficult to see in Davidson's
ist polemic, but a distrust of the whole epistemological rejection of the idea of competing conceptual schemes "points of
enterprise . . . the Platonic quest for that special sort of certainty view from which individuals, cultures, or periods survey the passing
·
associate d WI· th visua
· .
I perception."22 scene", 26 a parallel to Heidegger's disparagement of the modern
The connection between holism and anti-visuality is most easily age in which
seen in the work of Davidson, whose essay "On the Very Idea of a
Conceptual Scheme" is discussed by Rorty in some detail. According man contends for the position in which he can be that partic­
to Davidson, ular being who gives the measure and draws up the guidelines
for everything that is. [And] Because this position secures,
(' )
c "'•J'
If sentences depend for their meaning on their structure, and organizes, and articulates itself as a world view, the modern
: ,

'
f we understand the meaning of each item in the structure only
as an abstraction from the totality of the sentences in which
relationship to that which is, is one that becomes, in its deci­
sive unfolding, a confrontation of world views. 27
r
{ it features, then we can give the meaning of any sentence
� (or word) only by giving the meaning of every sentence (and And just as Davidson dispenses with the possibility of alternative
f.
�:. word) in the language. 2 3
;
conceptual schemes by doing away with the opposition between
scheme and content, so Heidegger emphasises that the confrontation
"
"
This i n itself i s a standard statement o f meaning holism, but of world views is merely a consequence of the modern way of rep­
'l :
'i Davidson goes on to draw the conclusion that it makes no sense to resenting and as such could never have arisen in "the great age of the
,,
c speak of a multiplicity of languages or "conceptual schemes" each Greeks" when there was no world-picture or picture of the world.
,,
with an incommensurable way of organising or fitting the world. If Comparisons between Davidson and Heidegger are inevitably
a language is translatable it is not an alternative scheme, and if it is fraught with complications, 28 but it is interesting to note that Rorty
untranslatable we have no basis for considering that it is a language. links Davidson and Heidegger on precisely the same basis that
There is no place for the notion of alternative schemes, or even for Goldmann couples Heidegger and Lukacs - the dissolution of the
the idea of a single scheme that intervenes between us and the subject-object model. According to Rorty, Heidegger and Davidson
world. We just have our world - the world constituted by the total­ are united in that they dispense with the "picture of the essential core
ity of the (true) sentences in our language. 24 of the self on one side of this network of beliefs and desires, and
 1 76 Seeing Things Hidden
reality on the other side". 29 According to Goldmann, Lukics and
Heidegger are united by the fact that they revived the idea that
Man is not opposite the world which he tries to understand and
upon which he acts, but within this world which he is a part of,
and there is no radical break between the meaning he is trying
to find or introduce into the universe and that which he is
trying to fmd or introduce into his own existence. 30
Reading Heidegger's "Age of the World Picture" alongside
Lukacs's "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat" sug­
gests that Goldmann's pairing of Lukacs and Heidegger is, in certain
respects, just as apposite as Rorty's coupling of Heidegger and
Davidson. Both are concerned with what they describe as the
modern "humanist" or "anthropological point of view", in which, as
Lukacs puts it, "man is made the measure of all things . . . [and] is
made into an absolute", or, as Heidegger phrases it, "Man founds and
confirms himself as the authoritative measure for all standards of
measure."3 1 For, as both argue, the result of man setting himself in
opposition to the world is that the more the world is objectified the
more subjective man's apprehension of it becomes. In Heidegger's
words : "the more extensively and the more effectually the world
stands at man's disposal as conquered, and the more objectively the
object appears, all the more subjectively, i.e. the more importu­
' '
nately, does the subiectum rise up". 32 Lukacs spells it out more clearly
still:
The object of thought (as something outside) becomes some­
thing alien to the subject. This raises the question of whether
thought corresponds to the object! The "purer" the cognitive
character of thought becomes . . . the more vast and
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 77
impassable does the abyss appear that yawns between the "sub­
jective" mode of thought and the objectivity of the (existing)
object. 33
The parallels between Davidson and Heidegger and between
Heidegger and Lukacs inevitably raise the question of the relation­
ship between Lukacsian totality and Davidsonian holism . If there are
significant parallels between the arguments of Lukacs and Davidson,
it suggests not only that anti-visual holism may be a significant omis­
sion from Jay's two narratives, but that Rorty's synthesis of
anti-visual holisms in an attack on the "Mirror of Nature" may do
little more than realise Lukacs's insight that "In the theory of 'reflec­
tion' we find the theoretical embodiment of the duality of thought
and existence, consciousness and reality, that is so intractable to the
reified consciousness."34
R elati v is m , V isi o n a n d T otality
The best way to explore the possibility is to compare the arguments
presented in two essays - Lukacs's "Reification and the
Consciousness of the Proletariat" and Davidson's "On the Very Idea
of a Conceptual Scheme". Although it would be wrong to imply that
they are saying identical things (or that one is echoing the argu­
ments of the other), it is possible to argue that both philsophers
make the same move in response to the detotalising visuality of rel­
ativism - a move that is both holistic and anti-visual.
The threat facing both philosophers is, as Lukacs describes it, the
possibility that dogmatic metaphysics will be superseded by an
equally dogmatic relativism. However, for Lukacs and Davidson,
the response to relativism is not a retreat into traditional
1 78 Seeing Things Hidden
metaphysics, but a radical critique that exposes the failure of rela­
tivism to relativise itself. To make sense of relativism, it is argued,
we have to make a distinction between subject and object and then
hold one of them static so that the other can be described as relative
to it; but if the intelligibility of relativism depends on an exception
to the principle of relativity, it is not really a theory of relativism
at all.
Davidson puts it like this:
The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of dif­
fering points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox.
Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a
common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the
existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic
incomparability. 35
Lukacs develops a parallel argument. Relativism makes man the
measure of all things, but without making the relationship between
man and reality dialectical. In consequence, "man himself is made
into an absolute". Because relativism "cannot become conscious of
the immobility of the world and the rigidity of its own standpoint it
inevitably reverts to the dogmatic position of those thinkers who
likewise offered to explain the world from premises they did not
consciously acknowledge". It is thus, paradoxically, "only meaning­
ful to speak of relativism where an 'absolute' is in some sense
assumed". 36
The alternative to relativism is, in Davidson's words, to "abandon
the attempt to make sense of the metaphor of a single space within
which each scheme has a position and provides a point of view"; 37 or,
as Lukacs describes it, to relativise all limits so that "those forms of
existence that constitute the counterpart of the absolute are
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 79
dissolved into processes and viewed as concrete manifestations of
history". 38 So, rather than truth being relative, or, as Lukacs terms
it, only able to achieve "an ' objectivity' relative to the standpoint of
the individual classes and the objective realities corresponding to
it", 39 there is no longer an opposition between the subject and object
of knowledge. As Davidson observes: "Given the dogma of a dualism
of scheme and reality, we get conceptual relativity, and truth relative
to a scheme. Without the dogma this kind of relativity goes by the
board.'>4°
The dissolution of relativism also means the disappearance of a
certain conception of reality. In Lukacs's words,
When theory and practice are united it becomes possible to
change reality and when this happens the absolute and its "rel­
ativistic" counterpart will have played their historical role for
the last time. For as the result of these changes we shall see the
disappearance of that reality which the absolute and the rel­
ative expressed in like manner. 41
But the loss of undialectical reality does not mean the loss of reality
itself. As Davidson points out,
In giving up dependence on the concept of an uninterpreted
reality, something outside all schemes and science, we do not
relinquish the notion of objective truth - quite the con­
trary. . . . In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we
do not give up the world, but re-establish unmediated touch
with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and
opinions true or false.42
According to Lukacs, "reality is the criterion for the correctness of
 1 80 S e e i n g Th i n g s H i d d e n
thought. But reali ty is not, it becomes - and to become the
participation of thought is needed." Thus:
thought and existence are not identical in the sense that
they "correspond" to each other, or "reflect" each other,
that they "run parallel" to each other or "coincide" with each
other (all expressions that conceal a rigid duality). Their iden­
tity is that they are aspects of one and the same real historical
and dialectical process. 43
For both Lukacs and Davidson, the argument against relativism
involves totalising relativity so that it is no longer meaningful to
speak of it. With the disappearance of the opposition between
scheme and world, thought and existence, we can no longer have
differing points of view on the world, or, indeed , a single point of
view on the world. We are left with the only thing that there is - the
unseeable totality of the world as we make it.
The World in H i ding : Heideg g er
Rorty's synthesis of anti-visual holisms allows us to see just how per­
vasive these ideas have been within recent thought, but, as he
concedes, none of the philosophers on whose work he draws allows
us "to see the domination of ocular metaphors in a social perspec­
tive".44 1n contrast, Lukacs's anti-visual holism, which parallels those
of Davidson and Heidegger, locates Cartesian perspectivalism within
a particular economic and social structure and looks forward to its
dissolution in the revolutionary totalisation of the proletariat as the
subject-object of history. What is curious is that in Rorty's work
Lukacs's eschatology is realised without revolutionary change. An
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 181
understanding of the world that Lukacs thought could arise only in
"a radically new situation" was, when articulated by Rorty, almost
instantly recognised to be a persuasive statement of many of our
existing pre-philosophical assumptions . But how did Lukacs's
utopian vision come to be accepted as a plausible account of our
everyday experience? In order to answer this question it is necessary
to give an account of anti-visual holism that spells out in more detail
how and why we apprehend the world as hidden. So in what follows
1 will first try to describe how the anti-visual holisms of recent
philosophy articulate a world in hiding and then, in the next
chapter, offer an historical account of one of the routes through
which the world may be said to have come into hiding.
Lukacs opposes the objectified world of capitalism to the practi­
cal class consciousness of the proletariat which transforms society
and with it "the structure and content of every individual object".
For him, "the essence of praxis" is annulling "the indifference of
form towards content" that underlies the objectifying yet subjec­
tivising gaze of relativism. But despite the ringing tones in which he
announces his anti-visual holism, he does not give a clear account of
how reality is to be apprehended in this unmediated and non-per­
spectival fashion. However, within the work of Heidegger there is a
more fully articulated description of a mode of visual apprehension
that differs from the objectifying, perspectival gaze of modernity. As
Goldmann pointed out, the structure of Lukacs's opposition
between objectification and praxis is reproduced in Heidegger's
opposition between Vorhandenheit (presence-at-hand) and
Zuhandenheit (readiness-to-hand). 45 But whereas Lukacs gives no
thought to the specifically visual implications of praxis, Heidegger
realised that, as Mulhall puts it (glossing Heidegger), "Praxis with-
out theory has Its own s1ght ., 46
0 °
According to Heidegger, the modern way of representing
 182 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
characteristic of the age of the world picture involves bringing "what
is present at hand [das Vorhandene] before oneself as something stand­
ing over against". 47 This approach, which is identified with
Descartes's orientation "towards being as constant presence-at­
hand", 48 is criticised in Being and Time for passing over "the Being of
those entities within-the-world which are proximally ready-to­
hand".49 Apprehending the ready-to-hand differs from the modern
way of representing in that it does not suppose some distanced and
neutral entity awaiting classification. It is not merely a way of taking
things, "as if we were talking such ' aspects' into the 'entities' which
we proximally encounter, or as if some world-stuff which is proxi­
mally present-at-hand in itself were 'given subjective colouring"'. 50
., As Heidegger points out: "What we 'first' hear is never noises or
.1 .
""'),
,.,1
complexes of sounds, but the creaking waggon, the motor-cycle."5 1
,,
,.
Similarly, when we encounter a room, "we encounter it not as some­
thing 'between four walls' in a geometrical spatial sense, but as
equipment for residing". 52 The key term here is "equipment", for we
apprehend entities as ready-to-hand in the way that we unhesitatingly
use equipment to perform an action, without noticing either its
equipmentality or the objecthood. In hammering with a hammer,
for example,
the less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we
seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our rela­
tionship to it become and the more unveiledly is it
encountered as that which it is - as equipment. The hammer­
ing itself uncovers the specific "manipulability" of the
hammer. 5 3
It i s only if the hammer i s unusable, or missing, or in the way, and so
comes to our attention as something un-ready-to-hand, that it is
T h e Wo r l d in H i d i ng : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 183
seen as present-at-hand. We see it as an object only when we cannot
use it for hammering.
Heidegger calls such unmediated pre-theoretical apprehension
"understanding" and argues that it is presupposed in "interpreting" .
Interpreting brings our understanding to the level of conscious
awareness; it is thus never a matter of classifying mere objects:
In interpreting, we do not, so to speak, throw a "signification"
over some naked thing which is present-at-hand, we do not
stick a value on it; but when something within-the-world is
encountered as such, the thing in question already has an
involvement which is disclosed in our understanding of the
world, and this involvement is one which gets laid out by the
interpretation. 54
Discovering that a hammer is an object for hammering is not the
result of uniting an unidentified object with the concept of for-ham­
mering: both require that the hammer is already understood, that it
is ready-to-hand. So there cannot be what Davidson calls a "dualism
of scheme and content, of organizing system and something waiting
to be organized", for, in our apprehension of the ready-to-hand, we
are always already in "unmediated touch" with the world.
Heidegger's account of readiness-to-hand parallels the arguments
of Davidson and Lukacs not only in its opposition to Cartesian per­
spectivalism and its emphasis on the practical, interactive basis of our
understanding, but also in its explicit semantic holism . For
Heidegger, understanding is not an isolated or piecemeal process:
"The ready-to-hand is always understood in terms of a totality of
involvements . . . . [And] As the appropriation of understanding, the
interpretation operates in Being towards a totality of involvements
which is already understood." 55 But, unlike Lukacs and Davidson,
1 84 Seeing Things Hidden
Heidegger also spells out the role of vision within his anti-perspec­
tival holism. His rejection of perspectivalism is not a complete
rejection of vision. On the contrary, he argues that the theoretical,
perspectival gaze is derived from another mode of visual cognition:
When we merely stare at something, our just-having-it­
before-us lies before us as afailure to understand it any more. This
grasping which is free of the "as", is a privation of the kind of
seeing in which one merely understands. 56
Heidegger terms the kind of seeing involved in understanding "cir­
cumspection" [Umsicht). However, circumspection is also involved in
interpretation in that circumspective discovery in "The ready-to­
hand comes explicitly into the sight which understands."57 Heidegger
argues that the same form of sight is applicable to both understand­
ing and interpretation, because although it is the case that "In dealing
with what is environmentally ready-to-hand by interpreting it cir­
cumspectively, we 'see' it as a table, a door, a carriage, or a bridge",
this does not mean that the "as" turns up for the first time, it just gets
expressed for the first time. As Heidegger points out: "When we
have to do with anything, the mere seeing of the Things which are
closest to us bears in itself the structure of interpretation", so
although such mere seeing might be described as fore-sight it is a
fore-sight of the same kind. 58
But how does circumspective interpretation relate to the totality
of involvements in terms of which the ready-to-hand is understood?
In interpretation, "The context of equipment is lit up, not as some­
thing never seen before, but as a totality constantly sighted
beforehand in circumspection."59 However, in this fore-sight, what is
understood is still veiled; "it becomes unveiled by an act of appro­
priation, and this is always done under the guidance of a point of
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 85
view, which fixes that with regard to which what is understood is to
be interpreted". 60 But it is this very quality of being veiled, of being
inconspicuous, unobtrusive and non-obstinate, in which "the Being­
in-itself of entities which are ready to hand has its phenomenal
structure constituted". 6 1 So in the unveiling of interpretation, in
making present-at-hand, "that which is ready-to-hand loses its readi­
ness-to-hand in a certain way. . . . It does not vanish simply, but takes
its farewell, as it were, in the conspicuousness of the unusable." 62
But if interpretation deprives the ready-to-hand of the veil that
characterises ready-to-handness , assertion, the communicative
pointing out of something-as-something, obscures the ready-to­
hand still further. Rather as circumspective interpretation discovers
readiness-to-hand, so assertion discovers presence-at-hand. In this
process "something present-at-hand which we encounter is given a
definite character in its Being-present-at-hand-in-such-and-such-a­
manner" with the result that "the ready-to-hand becomes veiled as
ready-to-hand". What this means is that the totality of involvements
in terms of which the ready-to-hand is understood also disappears
from view. In interpretation, this totality "need not be grasped
explicitly", for the perspectival nature of interpretation means that
the understanding of the totality "need not stand out from the back­
ground". But in assertion,
The as-structure of interpretation has undergone a modifica­
tion. In its function of appropriating what is understood, the
"as" no longer reaches out into a totality of involvements . . .
it has been cut off from that sigm"ficance which as such con-
' '
stitutes environmentality. 63
The underlying dynamic of the relation between vision and
totality now becomes clearer. The progression from understanding,
1 86 S e e i ng Things H i d d e n
to interpretation, to assertion, from using a hammer, to noticing a
hammer, to asserting something of the hammer, is one in which the
hammer is progressively brought into view as a hammer. But this
sharpening of the focus is also a narrowing. As Heidegger states, it is
"by this explicit restriction of our view, [that] that which is already
manifest may be made explicitly manifest in its definite character". 64
From the dim apprehension of the veiled totality of involvements to
the explicit assertion that something is something, there is at no
stage a point at which the totality may be clearly seen and pointed
out. In understanding, the totality is seen veiledly; as that veil is
lifted, the totality recedes into the background and then out of sight
altogether.
T h e World in Hiding : W ittgenstein
and D av ids on
As Stephen Mulhall has demonstrated , there are illuminating
parallels between Heidegger's account of readiness-to-hand
and Wittgenstein's discussion of continuous aspect-perception. 65
Wittgenstein uses the term "aspect-dawning" to describe the expe­
rience of seeing the rabbit in the duck-rabbit when you had
previously seen only the duck, in contrast to the experience of
seeing what you had taken for granted all along, or "continuous
aspect-perception". But since, once the rabbit-aspect dawns, it is
seen in the same way as the duck-aspect, the experience of aspect­
dawning also reveals something about what was involved in your
previous unreflective apprehension of the duck.
The dawning of the rabbit-aspect does not involve examining the
drawing as if it were a blueprint and interpreting the arrangement of
lines as a representation of a rabbit; it rather involves a new response
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 87
which suggests that the figure has somehow altered its properties.
Aspect-dawning is not a matter of reclassification, but of the direct
apprehension of something that did not appear to be there before. If
so, this suggests that continuous aspect-perception, our everyday
seeing of things in the world, may not be a matter of classification
either, but, like aspect-dawning itself, a recognition that we are
encountering something already "saturated with human meaning". 66
If the perceptions we take for granted were formed on the basis of
interpretation, we could not experience aspect-dawning at all: we
could alternately classify the duck-rabbit figure as a duck and a
rabbit, but we could not experience the gestalt switch and see the
duck and the rabbit flip back and forth before our eyes.
The condition of someone who cannot experience aspect-dawn­
ing and treats pictures like blueprints Wittgenstein terms
"aspect-blindness". Mulhall summarises the difference between con­
tinuous aspect-perception and aspect-blindness as follows:
In the case of pictures, the contrast is between someone who
directly perceives an arrangement of colour-patches on canvas
which he then interprets as a representation of a landscape and
someone whose gestures and verbal behaviour reveal his taking
it for granted that the basic elements of what he sees (the ones
he directly perceives) are representations of elements of the
landscape . . . . With respect to language, continuous aspect
perception involves directly perceiving the written and spoken
elements of language as meaningful words and sentences
rather than inferring their linguistic meaning from a direct
perception of bare sounds or marks. 67
The analogies with Heidegger are clear enough. Like understanding,
continuous aspect-perception involves the direct, taken-for-granted
---

1 88 Seeing Things Hidden T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 189

apprehension of something as something, as opposed to the The incommensurability of the two paradigms is therefore analagous

approach of aspect-blindness in which, as Heidegger puts it, "aspects to the perceptual incommensurability of two gestalts:

are talked into entities". Wittgenstein's account is here as holistic as

Heidegger's: aspects do not dawn in isolation: "What I perceive in What were ducks in the scientist's world before the revolution

the dawning of an aspect is not a property of the object, but an are rabbits afterwards. The man who first saw the exterior of

internal relation between it and other objects ."6 8 As Mulhall the box from above later sees its interior from below. 72

observes, "this means that grasping one concept within the set
involves grasping the set as a whole". 69 What Davidson objects to in Kuhn's account is the idea that "one

Wittgenstein's description of aspect-perception and Heidegger's world is seen from different points of view". There is, he argues, no

account of readiness-to-hand both suggest that our apprehension of reason why we should ever think of there being "different observers

the world does not usually operate on the basis of a scheme-content of the same world who come to it with incommensurable systems of

dualism. However, using Wittgenstein's articulation of the gestalt concepts". 73 It is impossible to think of such systems as "largely true

switch as a model of cognition in the unified field of knowledge but not translatable", because, if untranslatable, we cannot under­

described by Lukacs and Davidson is potentially problematic, for it stand what, if anything, those "systems" are, or attribute to those

was precisely the possibility of such gestalt switches that Davidson's supposed to hold them the necessary propositional attitudes. In the

argument was supposed to disallow. case of partial rather than total failure of translatability, Davidson

Davidson's article is directed primarily against Kuhn's claim that invokes Quine's principle of charity which requires that we max­
imise agreement if only in order to clarify the nature of our
"'
,, '
the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades disagreements. For example,

in different worlds . . . before they can hope to communicate

fully, one group or the other must experience the conversion If you see a ketch sailing by and your companion says, "Look at

that we have been calling a paradigm shift. 70 that handsome yawl", you may be faced with a problem of
interpretation. One natural possibility is that your friend has

The paradigm shift is conceived by Kuhn in terms of a gestalt switch: mistaken a ketch for a yawl, and has formed a false belief. But
if his vision is good and his line of sight favourable it is even

At times of revolution, when the normal-scientific tradition more plausible that he does not use the word "yawl" quite as

changes, the scientist's perception of his environment must be you do, and has made no mistake at all about the position of

re-educated - in some familiar situations he must learn to see the jigger on the passing yacht. 74

a new gestalt. After he has done so, the world of his research
will seem, here and there, incommensurable with the one he As Davidson points out, not only do "we do this sort of off the cuff

had inhabited before. 71 interpretation all the time in order to preserve a reasonable theory

1 90 Seeing Things Hidden
of belief", but "if we want to understand others, we must count
them as right in most matters". 75 So, he argues, nothing could force
us to conclude that someone had an incommensurable conceptual
scheme rather than just a different set of opinions.
However, as Sorensen suggests, Davidson's argument, like others
that invoke the principle of charitable interpretation, cannot exclude
the possibility that what may be an irrational conclusion in any one
instance may nevertheless be rational on the basis of aggregation.
Davidson does not show that alternative conceptual schemes are
impossible, only that, under the principle of charity, we can never
rationally attribute an alternative conceptual scheme to another
person in any given instance ; so, "although I might be sceptical
about whether particular people had alternative conceptual
schemes, I need not be sceptical about whether any people had
alternative conceptual schemes". 76 Rather than being, as Davidson
supposes, a conceptual impossibility, an alternative conceptual
' .�
"I
scheme is, Sorensen argues, actually only an epistemological impos­
'1
sibility; "alternative conceptual scheme" is, in fact, a blindspot
predicate. There may be alternative conceptual schemes, but we
are never in a position to recognise any individual's conceptual
scheme other than our own.
In order to see why this might be so, we can apply the principle
of charity to situations in which we might experience a gestalt
switch. If you see a duck in a duck-rabbit drawing and your com­
panion says "Look at that rabbit" when she is in just as good a
position to see the drawing as you are and shares your understand­
ing of what rabbits and ducks are like (the former have long ears, the
latter have bills), then, on the principle of charity, you are going to
have to conclude not that she sees the drawing from an incommen­
surable point of view but rather that she is joking, or using the word
"rabbit" in some other way, perhaps metaphorically. The principle of
p
I
I'
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 191
charity seems completely appropriate here, for i f the rabbit-aspect
of the drawing had never dawned on you, you would never have any
grounds for supposing that your companion was seeing another
aspect of the drawing rather than just having fun at your expense.
But the need to maximise agreement would, in effect, disguise the
rabbit. It would render the rabbit inaccessible by preventing you
from recognising something your companion saw and that was actu­
ally in front of your eyes as well.
On the other hand, if you could sometimes see the rabbit instead
of the duck, you would take your companion 's remark very differ­
ently. Whereas before the rabbit-aspect dawned on you, your
companion really did have an incommensurable point of view but one
which you had no reason to suppose might exist, after the aspect has
dawned, your companion's view is in accordance with your appre­
hension that the drawing is both a duck and a rabbit. So in supposing
your companion to see an aspect that you can also see you will
assume a greater degree of agreement between you than you would
in supposing that there is something ludic or metaphorical in your
companion's statement. However, in order to sustain this opinion you
will have to interpret your companion's injunction to "Look" not as
simple ostension, but as an instruction to see something different, to
switch aspects, to see one thing rather than another. To maximise
your agreement about what there is in the drawing, you will have to
suppose that looking at it does not automatically reveal everything
that is there to be seen. Instead of disguising an aspect, the principle
of charity here leads to the supposition that one aspect is concealed.
Understood in this way, the import of Davidson's argument can
be reassessed . It is not a demonstration of the impossibility of
incommensurable gestalts of the kind described by Wittgenstein
and Kuhn, but rather an argument which shows how the perceptual
incommensurability of two gestalts might extend to, and be
--
1 92 Seeing Things Hidden
paralleled by, the conceptual inaccessibility of differing meanings,
paradigms or languages. Ironically, therefore, what Davidson appears
to have done is not do away with Kuhn's idea of incommensurable
paradigms but provide a cogent philosophical argument that explains
just why alternative conceptual paradigms , in so far as they are alter­
native, are always hidden just as the duck-rabbit is always hidden.
The idea that there might be incommensurable ways of seeing the
world can therefore be rearticulated without re-establishing the
dichotomy of scheme and content. For just in so far as the world has
contradictory aspects, it will have the potential to be apprehended in
ways that are incommensurable. Instead of there being a neutral
world capable of alternative modes of interpretation, there might be
a contradictory world revealing differing aspects of itself. However,
the principle of charity will prevent us from fully knowing these
contradictory truths. If the totality of true sentences in our lan­
guage includes sentences that contradict one another, then our
language is going to contain true sentences that we cannot simul­
taneously know to be true, and our world is going to contain places
that we cannot explore from where we are, places that we cannot
fully know to be there at all.
The anti-visual significance of Davidson's argument requires
reassessment as well. Davidson suggests that because we can never
have reason to suppose that anyone has an alternative point of view
on the world, the very idea of having a point of view or conceptual
scheme becomes redundant. But while it may be true that the idea
of alternative conceptual schemes interpreting a neutral reality may
be inappropriate, the idea of seeing different aspects of the same
contradictory reality remains a possibility, even though such con­
tradictory aspects could never be seen by the same person at the
same time.
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 193
T h e M anif old
The account of hiddenness derived from Wittgenstein and
Davidson suggests that in so far as the world contains truths at odds
with those we currently apprehend, they will also be inaccessible to
us. This may seem far removed from the version of hiddenness we
found in Heidegger, where the distinction seemed to be between
the veiled whole and the visible part. However, this is not the case,
because, as Heidegger makes clear, it is precisely the incommen­
surability of all aspects of the whole that proves an obstacle to its
total visibility.
Heidegger appears to have had just this possibility in mind in
"The Age of the World Picture" where he contrasts Cartesian per­
spectivalism - in which subjects take a stand relative to an objective
reality and develop competing world views - with the pre-Socratic
understanding of knowledge. Protagoras famously claimed that
man was the measure of all things. Lukacs had used this phrase to
characterise the perspectival approach to knowledge, 77 and , as
Heidegger acknowledged, the claim sounds as if it could have been
made by Descartes. 78 However, according to Heidegger, Protagoras
did not necessarily mean that men measured reality relative to their
own positions. Paraphrasing Plato's Theaetetus, he cites Protagoras's
remark that: "Whatever at a given time anything shows itself to me
as, of such aspect is it (also) for me; but whatever it shows itself to
you as, such is it in turn for you.'09 This , he suggests, is not the
result of you and I having differing points of view, but of the differ­
ential nature of unconcealment itself:
Through man's being limited to that which, at any particular
time, is unconcealed, there is given to him the measure that
always confmes a self to this or that. Man does not, from out
1 94 Seeing Things Hidden
of some detached !-ness, set forth the measure to which every­
thing that is, in its Being, must accommodate itself. 80
The example given in the Theaetetus is of a wind which one person
finds chilly and another does not. 8 1 For Heidegger, the wind's being
chilly and not-chilly is not a function of one person being hot and
another cold and each imposing her own interpretation upon the
temperature of the wind, but of the differential disclosure of the
coldness and warmth of the wind itself. Put in these terms
Heidegger's claim sounds slightly eccentric, but if we consider the
way in which one person sees a duck and another a rabbit, or one
recognises an old acquaintance while another does not, differential
disclosure appears to be a familiar feature of our everyday experi­
ence.
The result is that in so far as the world or the entities within it are
complex, multifaceted, or contradictory, they are not disclosed
simultaneously and in their entirety to anyone. Heidegger therefore
quotes approvingly Protagoras's statement: "Manifold is that which
prevents the apprehending of whatever is as what it is."8 2 But he had
already echoed it in Being and Time, where he claims that "The con­
stitution of the structural whole [of Being-in-the-world] and its
everyday kind of Being, is phenomenally so manifold that it can easily
obstruct our looking at the whole as such phenomenologically in a
way that is unljied."8 3Indeed, Heidegger there argues that it is only
when this manifold is simplified that we can grasp it in its totality. 84
This happens in anxiety, for that in the face of which we are anxious
is not one thing or another but the world itself. In anxiety, the
world is simplified in that the "totality of involvements of the ready­
to-hand and the present-at-hand discovered within the world, is, as
such, of no consequence; it collapses into itself". 8 5
Heidegger's account of the manifold totality of involvements
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 95
collapsing in anxiety is the corollary of his description of the total­
ity of involvements disappearing from view in assertion. Whereas
the restriction of view involved in assertion means that one aspect is
picked out and the totality recedes into the background, in anxiety
the manifold totality collapses into an undifferentiated unity and is
grasped as a totality. But what never happens is that the manifold
totality of involvements is explicitly grasped as a totality: the total­
ity either recedes from view as it moves towards assertion or
collapses into unity as it is grasped as a totality. In our everyday
practical circumspection the manifold totality is understood, but in
a veiled or hidden manner; our efforts to bring it explicitly into
view, or to grasp it as a whole, are inevitably defeated as it recedes
into detotalisation or collapses into unity.
Heidegger's concept of the manifold allows us to understand
why totality and visibility stand in opposition. For if the totality
contains contradictory truths and we apprehend aspects of that
totality in terms of the totality, the more dearly we apprehend
one aspect the more obscured its contrary becomes. Contradictory
truths will then be the first to disappear as we bring an aspect of the
totality towards assertability. Heidegger's account may also help to
explain why, for Lukacs , the dialectic totality formed through
praxis must also be apprehended through its aspects. According to
Lukacs, moving beyond reification also involves a transition to
aspectival seeing:
Only when the theoretical primacy of the "facts" has been
broken, only when every phenomenon is recognised to be a process,
will it be understood that what we are wont to call "facts"
consists of processes. Only then will it be understood that the
facts are nothing but the parts, the aspects of the total process
that have been broken off, artificially isolated and ossified. 8 6
1 96 S e e ing Things Hidden
For Lukacs, the premiss of "the dialectic, which is self-contradictory,
a logical absurdity as long as there is talk of one 'thing' into another
'thing' . . . . is that things should be shown to be aspects if processes". 87
Each of these aspects must be seen as containing the possibility "of
unravelling the whole abundance of the totality", but, as Lukacs
emphasises, this is only possible if we accept that what we see is not
all there is, "if the aspect is seen as aspect, i.e. as a point of transition
to the totality". 88
S u m m ary
For the world to be wholly visible we would have to be able to
stand outside the world and see the whole of it. But, as Rorty first
recognised, there are few recent thinkers for whom that is a possi­
bility. Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Davidson were all deeply
uncomfortable with the idea that we encounter a neutral uninter­
preted reality whose structure is then reflected in our
interpretations of the world . And, as Mulhall has shown, in
Heidegger's articulation of readiness-to-hand and in Wittgenstein's
discussion of continuous aspect-perception there are plausible
accounts of the familiarity of the world as we experience it which
suggest that the as-structure of interpretation is something we find
within the world as we experience it and not something that we
impose upon the world from outside.
Ifhiddenness is a relationship between vision and totality in which
the whole is less than completely visible, then for the philosophers
whose holism rules out the possibility of seeing the totality from a
position outside of it � and thus the possibility of seeing the totality
as a whole � the world as a whole is always effectively hidden.
Furthermore, as Heidegger's discussion of the manifold and
T h e Wo r l d i n H i d i n g : A n t i - V i s u a l H o l i s m 1 97
Wittgenstein's example of the duck�rabbit remind us, the very fact
that the as-structure is inherent to our experience does not neces­
sarily mean that our experience is unambiguous or exhaustive. As
Heidegger and Wittgenstein both imply, in so far as the as-structure
is manifold one aspect is liable to mask others, and, as Davidson's
argument suggests, the very accessibility of one aspect of the world
may simultaneously render others inaccessible.
But two questions remain. The first is historical: Why should a
period in which visuality was prized at the expense of holism have
been succeeded by so many anti-visual holisms? The second is
theoretical : Why anti-visual holism? The more modest role
assigned to visuality within holistic thought may rule out a synop­
tic view of the totality from the outside, but circumspection or
continuous aspect-perception is, nevertheless, another type of
vision, and it perceives the world as hidden only in so far as all
aspects are not simultaneously visible. It is true that Heidegger and
Wittgenstein both emphasise the problems involved in appre­
hending complex phenomena, but there seems no obvious reason
why aspect-perception should be allied with an ontology in which
the incommensurable aspects of the totality are more than mar­
ginal features of the world.
Lukacs implicitly offers a single answer to both of these questions.
Cartesian perspectivalism is superseded by anti-visual holism
because of the totalisation of the proletariat as the subject-object of
experience, and the totality is necessarily perceived aspectivally
because this is a dialectical totality, i.e. self-contradictory, and so
accessible as a whole only through its aspects. However, Lukacs's
answer is of no direct help in explaining the prevalence of anti­
visual holism in contemporary thought, for whatever else has
happened since Lukacs wrote his essay on "Reification and the
Consciousness of the Proletariat", it has not included the
 1 98 Seeing Things Hidden

revolutionary totalisation of the proletariat in the way that he envis­

aged. Nevertheless , Lukacs 's account of the shift may offer some
insights into social and historical changes underlying the develop­ 6
ment of anti-visual holism.

C o mi n g i n t o Hi d i n g : T h e
M a ster-Slave D i a l e c tic

�·

The key to Lukacs's version of anti-visual holism is the connection

between seeing the world as something alien to the viewing subject,
and alienation as a social and political condition. Lukacs describes
perspectival thought as a mode of seeing in which "the object of
thought (as something outside) becomes something alien to the sub­
ject", 1 and suggests that this form of vision reflects the economic
practices of capitalism in which people sell their own labour as a
commodity and "a man's own activity . . . becomes something objec­
tive and independent of him". 2 In consequence, not only do
capitalists see their workforce as an impersonal object, a machine for
the generation of profit, but the workers themselves see their own
activity as something alien. 3 Lukacs calls this situation reification, a
process in which "a relation between people takes on the character
of a thing and thus acquires a 'phantom objectivity"'.+ In bourgeois
philosophy, the relation between subject and object, thought and
existence takes on this same reified character. And in the fetish of
objective "fact", Lukacs suggests, "we find the crystallisation of the
--

200 Seeing Things Hidden C o m in g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l ave D i a l e c t i c 201

essence of capitalist development into an ossified impenetrable thing human i s therefore like that between seeing a blueprint and seeing a

alienated from man". 5 However, if the worker becomes conscious figure, rather than the difference between working out that the

that her labour is not something alien, and that she is the subject and blueprint represents one thing instead of another, or that between

object of her own consciousness, this effects an objective change in seeing a figure one way and then another. This point requires care­

the object of knowledge, and with it the potential realisation that all ful exposition, for there is a distinction to be made between seeing

the so-called facts of existence are merely the reified aspects of total someone as alien and seeing someone as an alien, between being
aspect-blind and being blind to a particular aspect. The two do not
process in which thought and existence are dialectically unified. 6
Lukacs's account of perspectival thought as seeing something as necessarily go together: it would be theoretically possible to see

alien is echoed in Heidegger and Wittgenstein. Seeing things as someone as alien and work out that they were fully human, just as it

present-at-hand is identified by Heidegger with a failure to under­ would be possible to see a person's alien, robotic aspect instead of

stand in which the object loses the equipmentality of the their human aspect. In both cases, the dawning of someone's human­

ready-to-hand and becomes obtrusive, something to be stared at. ity would be de-alienating, but in different ways : the dawning of the

Similarly, for Wittgenstein aspect-blindness is (as Mulhall puts it) "a human aspect on the aspect-blind would be de-alienating primarily

vision of the world in which every language is at root a foreign in terms of the way in which the other person is seen, while the

tongue and every person an alien". 7 Neither Heidegger nor dawning of a new, human aspect would be de-alienating in terms of

Wittgenstein equates these modes of seeing with any particular the significance of the aspect itself.

social situation, but it is easy to see how the condition of aspect­ In practice, however, it is difficult to separate the two. If you

blindness, in which other people are treated as alien, might be can flip back and forth between someone's human and robotic

connected to particular forms of social or political interaction. In aspects it is one thing, but if the human aspect has never dawned at

aspect-blindness the as-structure is absent, so the aspect-blind do not all being blind to someone's humanity yet not their mechanicity is

instantly recognise other humans for what they are, but rather see not just a matter of failing to see one aspect rather than another so

them as objects whose humanity may or may not be decipherable much as a fundamental failure to experience another person. It is not

from their appearance and behaviour. Seeing people in this way is, as like not being able to see the duck rather than the rabbit in the

Wittgenstein suggests, akin to seeing them as robots rather than as duck-rabbit or the likeness of one picture-face to another so much as

human beings. 8 not being able to see a face at all but only a figure, or not being

The alternative to seeing someone as a robot is to see them as able to see a three-dimensional figure but only a two-dimensional

human, to see them as ensouled. But this is not a matter of working shape. If the three-dimensional aspect of a figure has never dawned

out that the automaton has a soul, it is the dawning of a soul. on us we will not just be seeing a different aspect to someone who

According to Wittgenstein, "My attitude towards him is an attitude sees the three-dimensional aspect but seeing it in a different way.

towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul."9 The dif­ Seeing only two dimensions is not just seeing another aspect of the

ference between seeing someone as alien and seeing someone as figure, but seeing the figure at a lower level of understanding.
 202 S e e i n g Th i n g s H i d d e n
Similarly, seeing the mechanical aspect of a person without ever
having seen the soul is not merely seeing something different, it
involves seeing something in a different way - not just seeing some­
one as an alien but seeing them as alien as well.
Similarly, aspect-blindness is not necessarily something absolute,
more a matter of the discrepancy between the level of aspect-per­
ception someone has and that which is potentially available to them .
Being blind to an aspect at one level (e. g. as a face) may j ust mean
seeing it aspectivally at a lower level (e.g. as a shape) . The aspect­
blind do not necessarily have to puzzle everything out from first
principles. Most of Wittgenstein's examples suggest this: although
someone might be unable to see a schematic cube as a cube, they
might nevertheless be able to see it as a representation of a cube
without having to puzzle over whether or not it is a representa­
tion; 10 they might be unable to see the landscape in the photograph
as a landscape, but they might take it as a diagram of a landscape
without having to work out that it is a diagram, etc. The question at
issue is not whether we can see all aspects or none, but at what point
we stop taking the world for granted and start having to interpret it.
Thus, although Wittgenstein's account of aspect-blindness makes a
conceptual distinction between being aspect-blind and not being
able to see particular aspects, the condition of aspect-blindness is
presented as a failure to see aspects of a certain type, namely those
that would give extra definition to the world and make it more
familiar to us. For Wittgenstein, it would seem, aspect-blindness is
not a total incapacity to see things aspectivally but a relative one. It
occurs when aspect-perception falls short and forces us to see things
perspectivally, to interpret the evidence because some aspect that
would allow us direct understanding has failed to dawn.
There is, Wittgenstein implies, a contingent (but not a necessary)
connection between what we see and the way that we see it. If we
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 203
take people as machines, and representations as two-dimensional,
we are going to have to do a lot more interpretation to make sense
of our experience than we would if we saw the aspects we are miss­
ing. And although we may be able to infer all that we normally take
for granted about the world, we are never going to feel as comfort­
able as we would if we saw more of it aspectivally. The exact nature
of the connection between what we see and the way that we see it is
never spelt out, but the import of Wittgenstein's examples is
nevertheless clear: if we see the world as composed of things that are
unlike ourselves, then we are going to have to work hard to make
sense of it because we cannot understand 'it in the way that we
understand ourselves. If we are blind to the soul in the machine, the
face in the drawing, the third-dimension in the figure, the fatness of
the word Wednesday and so on, then what we are missing is the
capacity of the things in the world to have the qualities we fmd in
ourselves. If we see the world as composed of alien things then we
are going to interpret it from the perspective of a being who is dis­
similar to what is being interpreted, we are going to see it not just
as made up of alien things but as alien.
So although seeing aspects that are less alien than those that were
seen before and the de-alienating effect of aspect-perception are
potentially distinct forms of de-alienation, they are likely to be com­
bined. We look at a familiar face in a different way to the way we
look at a stranger's, and although we can look at the familiar as
strange, we cannot look at the strange as familiar until it becomes so.
The spread of aspect-perception is therefore liable to be associated
with the perception of familiarising aspects, and the recognition
that the things in the world have more in common with us than we
previously thought. Put this way, aspect-perception sounds like a
form of animism, and in a way perhaps it is. But saying that seeing
aspects takes the form of seeing the things in the world as being like
 204 Seeing Things Hidden
ourselves does not mean that we are free to project ourselves onto
the world indiscriminately and see things that are not there. It should
not be taken to mean that we see ourselves reflected in the world '
rather that we see the world as an extension of ourselves (and vice
versa) and that there is no discontinuity between the two. De-alien­
ation is just a matter of accepting that we are not mismatched with
the world that we experience, that we find ourselves in a world
adapted to our use because we ourselves have made it and been
made by it.
It is probably easiest to grasp the link between seeing aspectivally
and seeing familiar aspects when it comes to people. Stanley Cavell
has explored this connection by examining the parallel between the
position of the sceptic who calls into question the existence of the
1 possess from observation of their behaviour.
' world and of other minds, and the moral and human failure of
) In
people to acknowledge one another dramatised in Shakespeare's
�
tragedies. According to Cavell, the failure of traditional epistemol­
ogy to refute scepticism suggests that "since we cannot know that the
world exists, its presentness to us cannot be a function of knowing.
The world is to be accepted; as the presentness of other minds is not
to be known, but acknowledged ."1 1 Acknowledgement differs from
traditional accounts of knowledge in its recognition that the accept­
ance of the other minds is not a matter of establishing their existence
but of opening oneself to them . As Cavell states: "my identification
of you as a human being is not merely an identificationif you but
with you. This is something more than merely seeing you." 1 2 Seeing
humans as humans is not a purely cognitive event; it is the acknowl­
edgement of a relationship.
Cavell coins the term soul-blindness to describe the failure to
acknowledge humans as humans. One form of soul-blindness that
Cavell considers is the possibility that slaveowners are soul-blind
when it comes to their slaves. According to Cavell, masters do not
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 205
treat slaves as slaves because they fail to see them as fully human,
they treat them as less than fully human because they see them as
slaves. The master's failure to see the humanity of his slaves is not
simply a lack of insight, but rather a way of seeing that obscures their
humanity: he "sees certain human beings as slaves, takes them for
slaves". 1 3 In consequence, he sees his slaves as something different
from human beings like himself: "They are as it were merely other;
not simply separate but different." 1 4 Although Cavell himself does
not construe it in quite this way, we might conclude that seeing
humans as slaves is a perfect example of soul-blindness, i . e .
seeing the robotic, slavish aspect of a person but not the soul, and so
taking the mechanical aspect of personhood for granted while being
forced to decipher which of the attributes of a soul slaves actually
this context, the potential affinity between Lukacs's account of
reification and Cavell's articulation of the human consequences of
aspect-blindness becomes clear. There is, in both Lukacs and Cavell,
an awareness of the close connection between a particular way of
seeing the world (objectified, perspectival, sceptical) and a particu­
lar way of seeing the people within it (reified, robotic) . Cavell
suggests that the two are not merely analogous but intimately inter­
woven; Lukacs goes further, arguing that it is the failure to
acknowledge the humanity of reified labour that lies at the root of
the perspectival world view. Is Lukacs right? It might seem equally
likely that general aspect-blindness should give rise to soul-blindness
as that soul-blindness should give rise to aspect-blindness. But if, as
I argued in the previous chapter, there has been a significant change
in the way that we see the world such that perspectivalism no longer
seems like a plausible account of the way we see the world, then it
is worth considering the possibility that social change, changes in the
way we see each other, are the cause. Social change offers a
 206 Seeing Things Hidden
promising explanation for any shifts in the way we perceive our
environment, if only because natural objects frequently take on
social meanings and society is always changing in a way that nature
is not.
According to both Lukacs and Cavell the type of social change
likely to be associated with a move towards aspectival seeing is de­
alienation, the identification of the self with others, the recognition
of other humans as humans, soul-dawning. This suggests that where
the perspectival gaze of early modernity saw human beings as robots,
machines alienated from their humanity, the human aspect of alien­
ated humanity dawned through the recognition that what was taken
, ,,,
,. to be simply alien to the viewing subject was actually the same as the
:g
'··
l :::,�'
viewing subject - an acknowledgement that fundamentally changed
:lj the relationship between the two. The example of de-alienating
:J
. ., acknowledgement that both authors seem to have at the back of their
;2 minds is that of slavery: Lukacs cites the practical self-knowledge of
the worker as an alternative to the "accidental" self-knowledge
of the slave in antiquity, 1 5 and Cavell offers the mutual recognition
of master and slave as an example of the de-alienating effect of
reciprocal acknowledgement. 1 6 One reason that both turn to the
same example is, of course, that the recognition of slaves as fellow
human beings after millennia in which their subhuman condition
had been unquestioned is one of the most striking of the
developments in human self-understanding that have characterised
:i
modernity. Another is that within both Lukacs's and Cavell's
accounts of de-alienation there are unmistakable echoes of Hegel's
master-slave dialectic. In consequence, although Lukacs's Marxist
'I
reading appropriates the dialectic for the proletariat under capitalism
rather than the slave of antiquity, 1 7 and Cavell's interpretation unites
the dialectic with a Wittgensteinian rejection of traditional episte­
mology, the essential dynamic is the same in both cases: de-alienation
C o m i ng i n t o H i d i n g : M a st e r- S l av e D i a l e c t i c 207
is the recognition of self in other. If there is a connection between
social and epistemological de-alienation, then slavery would seem to
offer the best opportunity to explore it: not only is slavery the para­
digmatic example of social alienation, but the decisive shift in
attitudes towards slavery allows us to see its consequences. In what
follows, I will first examine in some detail a sequence of texts
(including Hegel's master-slave dialectic) that, taken together, artic­
ulate the condition of the slave before, during and after
emancipation, and then discuss their epistemological implications.
A ristotle
In so far as the institution of slavery in the west had a theory, it was
provided by Aristotle's remarks on slavery in the Politics. Although
the precise meaning of the passages in question is not always clear,
they underpinned the medieval concept of dominion, and in the
Renaissance furnished arguments first for the enslavement of indige­
nous Americans, and then for the enslavement of Africans instead.
When opponents of slavery sought to criticise either the practice or
the institution it was to Aristotle that they too referred . 1 8
Although no one advocated the abolition of slavery in the ancient
world, the existence of the institution dearly posed something of an
intellectual puzzle. Slavery was universally held to be a subhuman
condition, and so, if it were justifiable, those held in that condition
ought to be subhuman too. However, there was no distinct race of
slaves: freemen were liable to become slaves through being taken
prisoner in war or some other misfortune, and slaves could become
free as a result of manumission. So if, as the comic poet Philemon
put it, "no one is born to be a slave ; only chance enslaved his
body", 1 9 how could slavery be justified?

208 Seeing Things Hidden
Aristotle's response was to make a distinction between legal slav­
ery on the one hand and natural slavery on the other. Legal slaves are
those who happen, by chance, legally to be slaves, whereas natural
slaves are those who are, by nature, fitted for slavery. Against those
who would claim that the former condition necessarily implied the
latter, Aristotle pointed out that even they would "by no means
admit that a man that does not deserve slavery can really be a slave -
otherwise we shall have the result that persons reputed of the high­
est nobility are slaves . . . if they happen to be taken prisoners of war
and sold". 20 So if it is conceded "that there exist certain persons who
are essentially slaves everywhere and certain others who are so
nowhere", 2 1 it follows that there must be a less than perfect fit
between legal and natural slavery. Thus, Aristotle suggests, the only
true slaves are natural slaves legally enslaved; natural citizens who
are legally enslaved ought to be freed, and natural slaves who are
legally free ought to be enslaved.
The beauty of Aristotle's solution was that it upheld the institu­
tion of slavery while legitimating enslavement and manumission as
the processes through which legal slavery accommodated itself to the
underlying realities of natural slavery. The implication that slaves and
non-slaves belong to two distinct categories of humanity whose exis­
tence legal slavery could strive to reflect but never alter is confirmed
by Aristotle's earlier analysis of the meaning of natural slavery and
the character of natural slaves. According to Aristotle, a slave is
what we would think of as a robot. She or he is "an instrument of
action", a tool that works by itself:
For if every tool could perform its own work when ordered,
or by seeing what to do in advance, like the . . . tripods of
Hephaestus which the poet says "enter self-moved the com­
pany divine," - if thus shuttles wove and quills played harps of
�I
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 209
themselves, master-craftsmen would have no need of assis­
tants and masters no need of slaves. 22
A slave is also like a domestic animal in that she or he is the living
property of another person . 23 Being the property of the master
means that the slave is in a sense part of the master, 24 not, of course,
part of the master's soul but part of the master's body. 25
Given Aristotle's understanding of the body-soul relation, it
would seem that those fitted for this peculiar arrangement should
be distinguished by their bodies, but, as Aristotle acknowledges,
this is not the case. 2 6 Natural slaves are characterised solely by the
incompleteness of their souls. What the souls of slaves lack is var­
iously described as deliberation, 27 spirit28 and rationality (in the
sense of possessing rather than merely apprehending reason) . 29 The
precise relation between these attributes in Aristotelian psychology
is unclear, but the implication is always the same : whereas the souls
of the free can instantly be recognised in their entirety, the souls of
slaves are not something one can take for granted in the same way.
Slaves have some of the attributes of souls but not others and,
although it may be difficult to pinpoint what exactly is missing,
incompleteness precludes the possibility of proper self-govern­
ment. Since it is the nature of the body to be governed by the soul,
it is therefore appropriate for the bodies of those with souls
incapable of governing the body to be governed by other, more
complete souls. 30
The natural slave in the state of natural slavery is thus an incom­
plete soul whose body becomes part of the master's body so that the
master's soul may govern unhindered. 3 1 According to Aristotle, the
type of authority the master exercises over the slave is the same as
that of a tyrant over his subjects, 32 or the soul over the body, 33 in that
although there may be some community of interest between ruler
210 Seeing Things Hidden
and ruled, government is solely in the interest of the ruler. 34 The
rule of a master over a slave conforms to this type because it too is
an example of the soul ruling the body. However, although the
master rules the slave's body with the absolute authority with which
the master's soul governs his own body (of which the slave 's body is
now merely a separate part), there is no implication that the master's
soul rules the slave 's soul in the same way. On the contrary, the rule
of the rational over the appetitive part of a soul is like that of a
monarch who rules in the interests of his subjects, or a father who
governs in the interests of his children with "admonition, reproof,
and encouragement". 3 5 The master's soul should rule the slave 's
soul in the same way, with admonition and not merely command. 36
It appears that the slave's incomplete soU'l is not enslaved by the
master's soul , merely subject to it, and so whereas friendship
between master and slave is impossible in so far as the slave is a tool
or body-part of the master, friendship between master and slave is
possible in so far as the slave is another soul, albeit incomplete and
subject to the master. 37
Aristotle's analysis of the neat fit between the institution of slav­
ery and the character of the natural slave provides a justification for
the enslavement of those whose humanity is somehow incomplete,
while retaining the awareness that slavery does not obliterate such
humanity as they possess. And if he fails to argue the corollary that
those who are not natural slaves cannot be accommodated to natu­
ral slavery, it is easy to see how the argument might go. If slavery is
the rule of the slave's body by a soul of another, then the very pos­
sibility of slavery depends upon the slave's body not being governed
by the slave's own soul. In the case of natural slaves, of course, the
soul is not equipped to rule and so the proper relation of soul to
body can only be established through slavery which brings the
slave's body under the rule of the master's soul. But for a complete
C o ming into H i ding : M a s ter-Slave D i a l e ctic 211
human whose soul already rules the body with the despotic rule of
a master, the body does not await enslavement, and indeed cannot
be enslaved for the simple reason that it is, in a sense, already
enslaved.
For a complete human to be enslaved, their body would have to
be taken over by the soul of another. But, as Aristotle makes clear in
the De Anima, the Pythagorean idea that any soul can find its way into
any body is an absurdity. Just as each craft must employ its own
tools, so each soul must employ its own body: a soul cannot start
using another body any more than a carpenter can suddenly start
employing a flute. 38 The idea that someone who is not a natural slave
can be enslaved must therefore be similarly absurd: it suggests that
a master can appropriate a body that is already employed by another
soul . The possibility that a body could be ruled by two souls at once
is also excluded. Not only does every body have "its own peculiar
shape or form" and thus the unique soul appropriate to it, but the
soul is, by definition, what provides unity. If the soul were divided
according to its functions and yet somehow still the soul of a single
person, whatever held the parts of the soul together would be the
soul, not the parts themselves. As Aristotle states: "If . . . some
other thing gives the soul unity, this would really be the soul."39 Just
as a tyrant is, by definition, unique in the exercise of his tyranny,40
and a state could not simultaneously be subject to several tyrants
(without thereby either being an oligarchy or disintegrating into
separate states) , so the soul's rule of the body is also unique and
exclusive. Where the soul rules the body slavery is not just improper
but impossible.
The difference between natural slavery and non-slaves in legal
slavery is therefore analogous to that between natural slaves and
freemen under tyrannical government. According to Aristotle, and
the Greeks in general, Asiatic peoples were slaves by nature and so
212 S e e in g Things H i d d e n
acquiesced in the tyrannical nature of their monarchies without
resentment,41 whereas Greeks found tyrannies unendurable and so
were liable to revolt because as freemen they could not tolerate
being treated as slaves.42 Although both barbarians and Greeks might
be subjected to the same form of government, it did not make them
the same type of people. Similarly, slavery cannot make slaves of
those who are not slaves simply by giving them the legal position of
slaves.
Aristotle's theory emphasises that slaves are born, not made, and
that freemen and natural slaves are categories as mutually exclusive
as those of Greek and barbarian. In consequence, anyone who is
really a slave is suited to being one, and anyone who is not a slave by
nature can never really be a slave whatever their legal position. On
this account, to claim that someone who is really a slave (as opposed
to merely being under the legal disadvantages of slavery) should not
be a slave is simply a misunderstanding, a contradiction which
implies either that the slave's soul is somehow simultaneously com­
plete and incomplete, or that the slave somehow has two souls, one
complete and one incomplete.
Although within Aristotle's theory the idea that those who are
truly slaves are wrongly enslaved becomes unthinkable, his account
also created a framework from which that unthinkable conclusion
could be reached. Aristotle never bothered to work out how his
theory of slavery could be correlated with his theory of the soul, and
therefore never resolved the question of how, if the slave's soul is
incomplete and his body ruled by the master's soul, the two souls are
related to the slave's body. The obvious answer would be to suggest
that there was a division of labour with the master's soul perform­
ing only those functions of which the slave's inadequate soul was
incapable, with the result that through slavery the slave gained the
complete soul he otherwise lacked. However, in the De Anima
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 213
Aristotle explicitly rules out such a division in favour of the unity of
the soul. Within the theory of slavery, therefore, was an implicit
duplication of the soul which threatened to undermine the very
theory of the soul on which Aristotle's account of slavery depended.
H egel
Aristotle maintained that the same relationship could exist
between people (tyrants and subject) as between the constituent
parts of an individual person (soul and body), and implied that
the relationship of master and slave was this same relationship
expressed between a person (the master) and another being (the
slave) who was both a person and part of the other person. For
Hegel, who sought simultaneously to describe both the inter- and
the intrapersonal aspects of human development, the slave therefore
provided a natural focus. Indeed, the originality, and also the con­
fusing complexity, of Hegel's remarks on mastery and slavery may in
large measure be attributed to his attempt to exploit the ambiguous
condition of the slave in Aristotle's account to generate precisely
that contradiction which Aristotle excluded.
In order to understand how Hegel's argument works, it is
necessary to appreciate the extent to which his approach to the
problem is structured in Aristotelian terms. Although the relevance
of Aristotle's theory to Hegel's master-slave dialectic has often
been noted,43 its full significance to Hegel has not been appreciated.
Indeed some recent commentators have tended to distance
'
Hegel's dialectic from classical and colonial slavery on the basis
that Hegel 's terms for master and slave, Herr and Knecht, are more
appropriate to the feudal relation of lord and serf, or master and
servant. 44 But this is a false distinction. In Christian von Garve's
214 Seeing Things H idden
German translation of Aristotle's Politics, published posthumously in
1 799, Aristotle 's word for the slave, doulos, is translated as both
Sklave and Knecht, and occasionally also as Diener; but where the slave
is directly juxtaposed with the master (rather than discussed in gen­
eral), the two are almost invariably described as Knecht and Herr.
45 In
the notes to Garve's text, the equivalence of Aristotle's despotes and
doulos to the German Herr and Knecht is spelt out in the definitions
given to the two words : despotes is the Greeks' "particular word for
the master (Herr) who rules over either bonded or bought slaves
(Diener)"; doulos, although not the most abject form of enslavement,
and also a metaphor for other kinds of submissiveness, "expresses the
special character of this servitude (Knechtschcift)". 46
Garve 's now almost wholly forgotten translation of the Politics is
significant not only because it shows that Herr and Knecht were taken
to be the German equivalents of Aristotle's master and slave, but
also because the notes incorporate an unfinished essay by Garve
which discusses Aristotle's theory of slavery from a contemporary
perspectiveY The degree to which Hegel may have been influenced
by Garve must await full discussion elsewhere,
48 but one place in
which Hegel appears to develop an insight from Garve's essay is in
his account of the slave's self-recognition through work.
In addressing the question of whether it is possible for a slave to
have virtue, Aristotle suggested that slaves participate in virtue only
in so far as they need it to perform their masters' orders, and that
free artisans, such as cobblers , are in a similar position (Aristotle
calls it "limited slavery") in that their virtue is also derived from car­
rying out orders. However, Aristotle emphasises that this does not
imply that the master has any special knowledge of the tasks a slave
or artisan performs: the master must know how to direct tasks and
the slave must know how to execute them, but virtue attaches only
to the former activity, which, as the cause of the latter, is also the
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s te r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 215
cause of any virtue in the latter. 49 Garve realised that this argument
opened up a significant space within which those in complete or lim­
ited slavery could exercise autonomy and so experience freedom, a
freedom achieved not without but within their servitude. He articu­
lated the argument first with reference to the contemporary artisan,
but then outlined its implications for those in complete rather than
limited servitude:
The work of craftsmen produces something which lasts and
which serves for the use or pleasure of men. Their efforts are
such that they are able to be independent of those for the ben­
efit of whom they execute these tasks. The man who orders a
pair of shoes for himself gives orders to the cobbler only to the
extent to which he determines how he would like the shoes to
be made, but it is not necessary for him to supervise the cob­
bler while he is preparing the shoes. Once the cobbler has
received the order from his customer, in the carrying out of his
task he simply observes the rules of his trade rather than the
commands of his customer, and yet he produces exactly what
is asked of him. The craftsman must to a certain extent submit
to others when he accepts the order for his work, and also
when he delivers the finished product . . . . But he is, by the
very nature of the matter, completely free while he works. 50
From this essentially Aristotelian argument Garve extracts the
paradoxical and profoundly unAristotelian conclusion that in sub­
mitting to orders the worker achieves a freedom which means that
he "can eject from his workshop any customer who tries to lord it
over him", just as Apelles did to Alexander. Within the experience
of work, specifically in the process of physically shaping a material
object into something of permanent value, there is the potential

216 Seeing Things Hidden
not just for a liberating freedom, but for an overturning of the
normal social hierarchy. It was for this reason, Garve suggests, that
in antiquity "for those who made clothes or household implements
for their masters, slavery became more bearable than for those who
had to wait on their masters", and for this reason too that "the work
of the craftsman was transferred so quickly from the hands of the
slave into the hands of the freeman". 5 1 Rather than risking the pos­
sibility that slaves might experience freedom through work, work of
a liberating kind was given to the free.
In Hegel's master-slave dialectic the insight that even unfree
labour might be a route to freedom becomes an integral part of a far
more subtle and complex argument, but its basic structure is
nevertheless still clearly discernible. The same anti-Aristotelian par­
adox lies at the crux of the argument, for "the bondsman realizes
that it is precisely in his work wherein he seemed to have only an
alienated existence that he acquires a mind of his own". 52 Not only
this, but there is the same emphasis upon both the formative nature
of the work and the permanence of the object thus fashioned:
The negative relation to the object becomes itsform and some­
thing permanent, because it is precisely for the worker that the
object has independence. This . . . formative activity is at the
same time the individuality or pure being-for-self of con­
sciousness which now, in the work outside of it, acquires an
element of permanence. It is in this way, therefore, that con­
sciousness, qua worker, comes to see in the independent being
[of the object] its own independence. 5 3
What Aristotle had tried t o maintain a s a virtue-free vacuum
becomes in Hegel the site of a transformation.
Enough has been said to indicate that the master-slave dialectic
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 217
in the Phenomenolo8.J shares certain continuities of vocabulary and
thought with Aristotle's theory of slavery. But reading the dialectic
of the Phenomenology in the context of its later reformulations in the
Philosophical Propaedeutic and the Encyclopaedia, and in the light of
Hegel's remarks on African slavery in his Lectures on the Philosophy of
History, suggests that Hegel's engagement with Aristotle goes
deeper still. That Hegel had the actual institution of slavery in mind
when writing on mastery and slavery is clear from the Zusiitze to the
third volume of the Encyclopaedia, where the master-slave dialectic
is illustrated with reference to the tyrant-subject and master-slave
relations of antiquity. According to Hegel, in the ancient world
slavery existed in what were otherwise free states, because the
Greeks and Romans had not yet attained the notion of absolute
freedom, and believed that a man was free "only if he was born
free". 54 To this Aristotelian conception of a world synchronically
divided between slave and free, Hegel juxtaposed his belief that the
division between slave and free was essentially diachronic. While
accepting Aristotle's idea that individuals and nations who lacked
thymos, or, as Hegel put it, the energy and courage (Muth is also
Garve's translation of thymos in the equivalent passages in Aristotle)
to will their freedom, deserved to be enslaved by masters or
tyrants, he maintained that slavery and tyranny were merely a nec­
essary stage in the history of nations (and individuals) and hence
only relatively justified. Citing the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus (one of
Aristotle's stock examples of tyranny in the Politics) he argued that
his tyranny had taught the Athenians obedience to the law and so
made tyranny in Athens redundant. 55 But since Hegel did not sup­
pose the whole of humanity to have progressed towards freedom at
the same rate, the appropriateness of tyranny and slavery was sub­
ject to local variation. He was thus able to reinscribe Aristotle's
distinction between barbarian slaves and free Greeks not as an
218 Seeing Things Hidden
immutable fact of nature but rather as the result of the uneven
development of the human race.
Just as for Aristotle Asiatics had all been natural slaves, so for
Hegel Africans were all slaves by virtue of their undeveloped con­
sciousness. Since, according to Hegel, "the basic principle of all
slavery is that man is not yet conscious of his freedom, and conse­
quently sinks to the level of a mere object or worthless article", 56
and the African had "not yet reached an awareness of any substantial
objectivity" such as God, law or freedom, 57 it followed, as it had
mutatis mutandis for Aristotle, both that all Africans were slaves,
with the consequence that amongst them "the distinction between
masters and slaves is a purely arbitrary one", 5 8 and that their politi­
cal order was invariably tyranny, which, being slaves , they
considered perfectly legitimate and did not feel to constitute an
injustice. 59 However, unlike Aristotle, Hegel, writing in the light of
half a century of anti-slavery agitation,60 accepts both that slavery
ought not to exist and that in rational states it does not exist.
Colonial slavery, he suggests, is no different from classical slavery or
serfdom in medieval and early modern Europe: it is just another
"phase in man's education", a consequence of the general rule that
man must "first become mature before he can be free". 6 1 Just as
Pisistratus's tyranny had allowed the Athenians to mature, so, by
implication, the European enslavement of Africans will eventually
allow them to become conscious of their freedom as well.
Since, like Aristotle, Hegel identifies the master-slave relation
with that of tyrant and subject, it would be natural for him to equate
it also with soul and body. It is clear from the discussion of soul and
body in the Encyclopaedia that Hegel did conceive of the relation
between the two in terms of mastery and slavery. The development
of the feeling soul towards consciousness is summarised in a
Zusatz
as the process through which "the soul becomes master (Meister) of
C o mi n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s te r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 219
its natural individuality, of its bodily nature". 62 According to Hegel,
this is achieved through habit, for, in habit, the body is subjected to
the domination of the soul and moulded to its particular feelings ,
while the soul is emancipated from particular feelings and freed to
become the actual soul of consciousness. As the Zusatz to this section
of the Encyclopaedia states, to bring about this end the soul must
transform its identity with its body into an identity brought
about or mediated by mind, must take possession of its body,
must form it into a pliant and skilful instrument of its activity,
so transform it that in it soul relates itself to itself and its body
becomes an accident brought into harmony with its substance,
with freedom .63
The phrase "instrument of activity" ( Werkzeug der Thatigkeit) is
the same as that used in Garve's translation of Aristotle to
define the slave, 64 so there can be little doubt that if, as Hegel
states, "on the one hand, habit makes a man free, on the other
hand, it makes him its slave (Sclave)", it is the body that is enslaved
and its master, the soul, that is freed. 65
From this account of the relation between soul and body it is clear
that Hegel conceives habit in terms of the Aristotelian relation of
master to slave (and soul to body) . But although formulated in these
terms, Hegel does not equate the soul-body relation with that of
tyrant and subject, or with historical forms of mastery and slavery,
or the possibility of progress beyond such relations. If he had been a
materialist or an epiphenomenalist rather than an idealist, he might
perhaps have done so; instead, he seems to have shifted the dialectic
to another level, with the result that it becomes not the dialectic of
soul and body, but the dialectic of self-consciousness in all its
inevitable duality. So although Hegel's account of soul and body

220 Seeing Things Hidden
retains its Aristotelian form, the role of the soul-body relation in
Aristotle's account of natural slavery, and its function in providing an
intrapersonal analogue to the interpersonal relation of tyrant and
subject appears to have been transferred to another level of self­
awareness, that of self-consciousness.
That this is the case is shown by the fact that Hegel not only uses
tyranny and slavery to illustrate the development of self-con­
sciousness, he uses the development of consciousness to explicate
the condition of slavery. According to the Encyclopaedia, it is uni­
versal self-consciousness, attained as a result of the master-slave
dialectic, that gives rise to the virtues and institutions of civil soci­
ety. 66 It is these virtues and institutions that Hegel supposes
Africans to lack. The precise level of self-consciousness Hegel
attributes to them can be gauged from the comment that Africans
lack familial affection because such "philanthropic sentiments of
love etc. entail a consciousness of the self which is no longer con­
fined to the individual person". 67 The problem, in other words, is
that "The African, in his undifferentiated and concentrated unity,
has not yet succeeded in making this distinction between himself as
an individual and his essential universality."68 He is therefore "as yet
unconscious of himself", not in the sense that he has not attained
self-consciousness but in the sense that he has not progressed
beyond immediate self-consciousness which "has not as yet for its
object the 1=1, but only the ' I ' . . . [and] is not as yet aware of its
freedom". 69
It is, of course, through the master-slave dialectic that self-con­
sciousness is brought "to the consciousness of . . . real universality,
of the freedom belonging to all". 70 Similarly, it is through the devel­
opment of consciousness that emancipation from the actual historical
experience of slavery becomes possible. Just as slavery existed in the
classical world because the Greeks and Romans "did not know that
C o m i n g i n t o H i di n g : M a s te r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 221
man as such, man as this universal ' I ' , as rational self-consciousness '
is entitled to freedom",7 1 so it exists in Africa where consciousness
as immediate self-consciousness is unaware of its freedom. However,
just as the ancients developed through this experience of servitude
to masters and tyrants, so Africans may be expected to attain a uni­
versal self-consciousness through the experience of enslavement by
Europeans. As Hegel noted in the Encyclopaedia, some Africans
having acquired freedom "through Christianity after a long spiritual
servitude" had in Haiti actually formed a state on Christian princi­
ples. 72 Since Hegel held universal self-consciousness to be the root
of freedom, the state and other civil virtues, the fact that colonial
slavery had allowed some Africans to attain this universality meant
that their consciousness had developed through the experience of
slavery.
Whereas Aristotle suggested that the explanation and justification
for slavery lay in the existence of people with incomplete souls,
Hegel argues that the explanation for slavery was undeveloped self­
consciousness. However, the shift from soul to consciousness does
not appear to have disrupted the essential Aristotelian trinity of
relationships in which master-slave and tyrant-subject relations are
both analogous to one another, and simultaneously analogous to and
sustained by a third type of relationship, internal to the person.
Since for Hegel slavery ends with universal self-consciousness
formed through the master-slave dialectic, the historical condition
of slavery is found where self-consciousness is undergoing that devel­
opment described by the master-slave dialectic of self­
consciousness. In Aristotle, the interpersonal relation of master and
slave worked through being an internal relation between soul and
body - the master's soul and the slave's body. In Hegel, the inter­
personal relationship of master and slave is cotemporal with the
intrapersonal relationship of two self-consciousnesses as master and
222 Seeing Things Hidden C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r- S l ave D i a l e c t i c 223

slave, but how, in his case, does the interpersonal relationship relate dealing not with the activities o f separate human beings

to the intrapersonal one? but with component parts of the individual psyche. In order to
understand how this might be the case it is necessary to consider
why we might think of there being two self-consciousnesses within

T h e M aster- S lav e D i alecti c a single person. According to Hegel, self-consciousness becomes

self-consciousness rather than consciousness by differentiating

Since Hegel's account of slavery is so clearly conceived within itself from the content of consciousness, between an "I" that is

Aristotelian terms, and since he differs from Aristotle chiefly in conscious and what that "I" is conscious of. However, in so far as that

considering the transcendence of slavery to be a function of human "I" is self-conscious, what it is conscious of should be another "I" and

progress in history, it is appropriate to read the master-slave dialec­ not a self-less object. So self-consciousness moves towards positing

tic as an account of how that progress is achieved . 73 Nevertheless, in its content as another self-consciousness, a double of itself.

the Phenomenology the master-slave dialectic functions chiefly In self-consciousness, therefore, we have a division and duplica­

as a means of illustrating a particular phase in the development of tion which can be thought of as two selves. However, as Hegel

self-consciousness. As such, it is not always clear when Hegel is makes clear, these two self-consciousnesses are inevitably also one

referring to events that are intrapersonal in the sense that they take and the same, and so they mirror each other: "Each sees the other do
place within a single individual and when he is referring to events the same as it does; each does itself what it demands of the other,

that are interpersonal and so require the involvement of more and therefore also does what it does only in so far as the other does

than one individual. Most commentators have concentrated on the the same."75 This is where the problem starts, because both self-con­

interpersonal aspect to the exclusion of the intrapersonal; however, sciousnesses seek to establish their own selfhood, and selfhood has to

as Josiah Royce and G.A. Kelly have both emphasised, the dialectic be recognised by the other. 76 (To think of yourself as a self, you have

also seems to articulate an internal division, "the shifting pattern to think of yourself thinking of yourself as a self, but that makes the

of psychological domination and servitude within the individual self you think of thinking of yourself as a self rather less of a self

ego". 74 I will therefore give brief accounts of both intrapersonal than you. ) As a result, the two self-consciousnesses embark on the

and interpersonal readings before offering some suggestions about struggle for priority that initiates the dialectic.

how they might be related. Since, at this point, self-consciousness is a consciousness of a

self-consciousness which is both itself and its other, it can exist for­
itself only in so far as it exists for, and is acknowledged by, its other,
intrapersonal
its self. Attempting to confirm its existence for-itself, each self­

In the Phenomenolo8.Y there are repeated references to the splitting of consciousness simultaneously seeks the recognition of the other and

self-consciousness into opposing extremes, and to the inescapable (since the other is its self) hopes to find in the other that self-cer­

mirroring of one by the other. Both metaphors suggest that we are tainty which can only come from being acknowledged. Naturally,
2 24 Seeing Things Hidden
"this is possible only when each is for the other what the other is for
it", but since recognition is not necessarily a symmetrical relation,
and each self-consciousness acts in only one way at one time and in
the same way as the other, both seek the recognition of the other
without spontaneously recognising the other, and so make no
progress towards mutual recognitiOn.
. . 77
This competition for recognition is pictured by Hegel as a fight to
the death in which each self-consciousness stakes its life (its poten­
tial being for-itself) for its independence (its being for-itself).
To be unrecognised is not to exist as self-consciousness, so each
self-consciousness in seeking the recognition of the other is, since it
is the other, at once staking its own life and seeking the death of the
other. This trial by death, as Hegel calls it, shows self-consciousness
that life is as necessary for it as being for-itself, and so self­
consciousness is redivided not in the polarised form of two identical
self-consciousnesses, each striving for recognition, but in the form
of one consciousness that is for-itself and one that is for-another, i.e.
immediate consciousness. These two Hegel terms master and slave,
and it is from this unequal relation that mutual recognition is even­
tually achieved. 78
The relation of consciousness to itself which takes the form of
mastery and slavery resembles that which existed prior to the dupli­
cation of self-consciousness in that there is once again a disparity
between the self and what the self is conscious of, but differs in so far
as what the self is now conscious of is a self-consciousness, albeit one
that is not acknowledged as such. So instead of just consuming its
own content, the master consciousness consumes material reality,
which Hegel calls the thing, through this servile, unacknowledged
self-consciousness. The master consciousness is therefore related
to the thing through the servile consciousness, and, in a sense, to the
servile consciousness through the thing, for it is only in relating to
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i ng : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 225
the thing that the master consciousness relates itself to the servile
consciousness 79
.
In this situation, the master consciousness enjoys being for­
self in that it is acknowledged by the servile consciousness ;
the servile consciousness , in contrast, does not seek or obtain
recognition from the master, and allows the master to act through
it with the result that the action of the servile consciousness is
really the action of the master. (The servile consciousness becomes,
as Aristotle termed the slave, an instrument of action. ) Because
recognition is one-sided, the being for-self of self-consciousness is
not reflected in its consciousness of itself, and the being for-self of
the master consciousness is called into question. Even though the
servile consciousness recognises the master, what confronts the
master consciousness as its consciousness is an unacknowledged
consciousness which lacks being for-self, the self-certainty that
comes from recognition. 80
Conversely, because the object of the servile self-consciousness is
the master consciousness which is acknowledged and does have
being for-self, it is the servile consciousness which is potentially
conscious of itself as being for-self. But how, given that the servile
consciousness is unacknowledged by its master, is it to be
recognised?
The answer, according to Hegel, is that the servile consciousness
comes to recognise itself through the combination of fear and work.
The fear of death, "the absolute melting-away of everything stable",
is the experience of pure being for-self. Having experienced this, the
servile consciousness is implicitly (pure) being for-self, but it only
comes to recognise itself through the experience of work. Work
"shapes and forms the thing" into something that is independent and
permanent, and in which the worker can recognise itself.8 1 Given
that the servile consciousness is already because of its fear implicitly
226 Seeing Things Hidden
pure being for-self, what is reflected in the work is precisely that
being for-self which became implicit through fear but which the
servile consciousness can now see outside itself and thus recognise as
belonging to itself. As Hegel puts it:
In the lord, the being-for-self is an "other" for the bondsman,
or is onlyfor him [i.e. is not his own]; in fear, the being-for-self
is present in the bondsman himself; in fashioning the thing, he
becomes aware that being-for-self belongs to him, that he him­
self exists essentially and actually in his own right. 82
In the Phenomenolo8)',the result of this process is that the servile con­
sciousness is aware both of its own independence as being for-self
and of the master consciousness as a "consciousness that exists as a
being-for-self", but not that the two are identical. Nevertheless,
Hegel claims, this is the case, and we are now "in the presence of
self-consciousness in a new shape, a consciousness which, as the
infinitude of consciousness or as its own pure movement, is aware of
itself as essential being, a being which thinks or is a free self­
consciousness". 83
interpersonal
Although it is possible to conceive of the dialectic taking place inter­
nally between two self-consciousnesses, one of which masters the
other and uses it as the medium through which it is conscious of
material reality, Hegel's account employs several concepts such as
recognition, fighting and work (not to mention mastery and slavery
themselves) that are extremely difficult to understand in anything
other than interpersonal terms. And in the dialectic's first formula­
tion, in the System if Ethical Life, Hegel states that it is where there
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s te r- S l av e D i a l e c t i c 227
is "a plurality of individuals" and their power of life is unequal, that
the relation between them, as "person to person", is that of lordship
and bondage. 84 If, as this implies, master-slave dialectic is read as an
interpersonal relationship, then the fact that there is already more
than one distinct self-consciousness can be assumed. In this context,
recognition becomes more than just the acknowledgement of the
integrity and independence of one's own consciousness as an object;
it now involves acknowledging another individual as free and giving
him the respect due to someone in that state. Similarly, the fight is
now a literal struggle in which one of the combatants, faced with the
prospect of biological death, gives up his freedom and yields recog­
nition to the other in return for his life. The slave's individual will "is
suppressed in fear of the Master" while the master views the slave's
ego "as annulled and his own individual will as preserved". (Hegel
offers the example of Robinson Crusoe and Friday to illustrate what
such a relationship might actually be like. )85 The effect of this imbal­
ance is to make recognition completely one-sided: the slave
recognises the master as a free person in his own right, but the
master does not give the slave comparable recognition. Indeed, he
probably could not do so even if he wanted to, for the slave is not a
person in his own right, having given up what makes him an indi­
vidual person in return for his life.
For the master, the benefit of the relationship is not only that he
receives recognition, albeit from an unfree consciousness, but that
(as Hegel puts it in the System) he is "in possession of a surplus of
what is physically necessary" and can literally consume the products
of the slave's labours. 86 The slave, although he suffers a comparative
lack of what is physically necessary, is nevertheless maintained
by the master in return for his work. 87 However, in labouring for the
master, the slave does not merely work off "the selfish individuality
of his natural will", he also "overcomes the inner immediacy of
228 Seeing Things Hidden
appetite", 88 for he is not consuming material reality but effecting
"the positive transformation of external things through labour". 89
The combined result of the slave 's selflessness and work is the
recognition that he is, after all, free. In the Encyclopaedia the empha­
sis is entirely on the former aspect, the idea that the breaking of the
individual will is necessary in order to become "free, rational, and
capable of command".90 In the Propaedeutic, this is combined with the
idea that freedom is recognised when "through labour the self makes
its own determinations into the forms of things and in its work
views itself as an objective self". 9 1 But the result is the same in both:
the free slave is recognised as such by both himself and the master,
and so opens the way to mutual recognition - the freedom of uni­
versal self-consciousness.
intrapersonal and interpersonal
What is unclear, however, is how Hegel thinks the intrapersonal
development of self-consciousness, through what is only metaphor­
ically a master-slave dialectic, is related to the interpersonal
relations of actual masters and slaves in history. Since each implies
the other (undeveloped consciousness is the cause of slavery and
slavery causes the consciousness to develop) there must be some
relationship, but what is it? Hegel does not give a direct answer, but
it is nevertheless possible to argue that a particular type of relation­
ship is implied both by the internal structure of the argument and by
the Aristotelian framework within which it is conceived. For
Aristotle, the concept of slavery applied equally to the relation of the
soul to the body and the master to the slave (or tyrant to subject) .
For Hegel, the concept of slavery applied equally to the relation of
the master self-consciousness to the servile self-consciousness and to
the relations of actual masters and slaves (or tyrants and subjects) .
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e ct i c 229
For Aristotle, the external relationship of master and slave is
dependent upon the internal relationship between soul and body.
Specifically, slaves are distinguished by a deficiency in their internal
constitution which makes their souls incapable of mastering their
bodies, and so makes their bodies properly subject to the souls of
those who are capable of such mastery.
For Hegel too the external relation of master and slave depends
on an internal one, namely that of self-consciousness to itself. If
Hegel's argument follows Aristotle (as it does up to this point,
save that the role of soul and body has been transferred to master
self-consciousness and servile self-consciousness) , then slaves
would be distinguished by some deficiency in self-consciousness
such that, of the duplicated self-consciousnesses, one could not
master and enslave the other and so required another self-con­
sciousness to do so. In this case the external relation of master to
slave would be effected through the master self-consciousness of
one individual enslaving the self-consciousness of another, with the
result that the master-slave dialectic would be simultaneously
inter- and intrapersonal, being between different persons related as
a single individual.
The plausibility of the above interpretation is suggested by its
congruity with the Aristotelian framework within which Hegel's
argument is constructed, and by the fact that it is difficult to make
sense of Hegel's oscillation between the inter- and the intrapersonal
without assuming that the master-slave dialectic is not just a case of
self-consciousness relating to itself as though it were two persons,
but also of two persons relating as though they were one self-con­
sciousness. Evidence that this is so is provided by Hegel's first
tentative account of the relation of master and slave in the System if
Ethical L!fo. At this stage, when Hegel is thinking of mastery and slav­
ery in terms of interpersonal relations, he nevertheless maintains

230 Seeing Things Hidden
that within the relation of master and slave "the former is related to
the latter as cause; indifferent itself, it is the latter's life and soul or
spirit".92 This definition, which recalls Aristotle's account of slavery
where the master is to the slave as soul to body, and so causes
the action of which the slave is the instrument just as "the soul is the
cause . . . of the living body", 9 3 is restated still more explicitly in
the Propaedeutic, where it is said that the slave "lacks a self and has
another self [the master's] in place of his own". 94
However, it was not only Aristotle who offered a model of how
two persons might function as one. Hegel's description of one
person being the soul of another also looks forward to his account of
the relation of magnetiser and somnambulist in the Philosophy if
Mind. The practice of animal magnetism, or mesmerism, in which
the magnetist would place the patient into a magnetic sleep or trance
so that they were subject to the magnetiser's will, was described by
Kluge, one of Hegel's sources, in terms of the mastery (Herrschcift)
which the magnetiser exercised over the patient, 9 5 and Hegel's
remarks on the topic are significant both because they echo his first
definition of the master-slave relation, and because in describing
two persons as related so that one becomes the consciousness of the
other they constitute a direct parallel to his other accounts of master
and slave. According to Hegel,
The patient in this condition is accordingly made, and contin­
ues to be, subject to the power of another person, the
magnetizer; so that when the two are thus in psychical rapport,
the selfless individual, not really a "person", has for his sub­
jective consciousness the consciousness of the other. This latter
self-possessed individual is thus the effective subjective soul of
the former, and the genius which may even supply him with a
train of ideas. 96
1'
I
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 231 ,I
In animal magnetism, therefore, we have an example of the way in
which two separate individuals may come to function as one when
one forfeits the freedom rooted in consciousness and the other
becomes his consciousness, soul and genius . 97 The relationship
between them is then what Hegel calls a magical relationship,98 i.e.
a relationship in which one mind exercises unmediated influence
over another, as does man over the animals, and the soul over the
body when, in habit, it makes the body "a subservient, unresisting
instrument of its will".99 Since the relations of soul to body and
man to animal were standard Aristotelian analogues of the
master-slave relation, this strongly suggests that Hegel thought of
the relation of magnetiser to somnambulist in terms equivalent to
Aristotle's conception of master and slave.
But unlike Aristotle's theory of slavery, the theory of animal mag­
netism offered an account of how the selfless individual might gain
from this loss of individual identity. According to Walther's
Physiologie des Menschen, a German medical textbook contemporary
with Hegel's PhenomenoloBJ, when two individuals are in magnetic
rapport they experience an "intimate community of action such that
one soul is in both of them", except that "on one side there is an
active and on the other a passive rapport". However, Walther con­
tinues, "this relation can also be reversed in an instant and the
somnambulist magnetise the magnetiser". 100 So although the struc­
ture of the magnetic relation might be identical to that of Aristotle's
master and slave in that one person became part of another and one
soul governed two bodies, it held within it the potential for that rela­
tionship to be overturned, and the positions reversed. 1 0 1 This
possibility was implicit in the ambiguous position of the somnam­
bulist: although the somnambulist might be a selfless individual
possessed by the soul, or consciousness, of the magnetiser, his indi­
vidual soul was not so much annihilated as dissolved in the universal
232 Seeing Things Hidden
soul of the world . As Walther observes, "in magnetic sleep the soul
is in intimate communion with the universal world soul" . 102 So
although the somnambulist's individual soul is functionally replaced
by that of the magnetiser, it also participates in the universal soul
which is shared with that of the magnetiser, with the result that, as
Walther puts it, "that which separates and divides them no longer
exists", and, by implication, the question of which of the two is
dominant and which subordinate becomes secondary.
Hegel rehearses the commonplace distinction between the indi­
vidual and universal conceptions of the soul in his account of
magnetism. 1 03 But, for him, there is no straightforward exchange of
individuality for universality in magnetic sleep, because the som­
nambulist loses full consciousness only to achieve a limited form of
universality at a lower psychic level. 104 Despite this shift, it is not dif­
ficult to see the parallel with the master-slave dialectic where the
slave exchanges individuality for universality at the same psychic
level, namely that of self-consciousness. Just as the consciousness of
the somnambulist becomes "an inward consciousness" so, after the
1 tion, in which the slave's self-consciousness has as its object not
fight, the slave is "a consciousness forced back into itself". 05
However, for the slave, unlike the somnambulist whose conscious­
ness is reduced to the level of genius (see below), there is no real
loss: it is still a self-consciousness because, according to Hegel, the
condition of self-consciousness without a self-object, "this pure uni­
versal movement, the absolute melting away of everything stable, is
the essential nature of self-consciousness". 1 06 So just as in the mag­
netic state the self-less somnambulist was thought to participate in
what Hegel termed "the wholly universal being in which all differ­
ences are only ideal and which does not one-sidedly stand over
against its Other", 1 07 so in the master-slave dialectic the slave gains
"the intuition of itself not as a particular existence distinct from
others but as the implicit universal self". 1 08
C oming into H i ding : Master-Slave Dia lectic 233
Animal magnetism provided a model for an interpersonal relation
that took the form of an intrapersonal one, and in which the result­
ing loss of individuality for one party led to their participation in
universality. Given that Hegel himself conceived the magnetic rela­
tion in terms parallel to that of the Aristotelian master and slave and
described it in terms strongly reminiscent of the master- lave �
dialectic, it is almost impossible to believe that the dynamics of
animal magnetism are not reflected in the dialectic itself. If so, and
here (for the first time) it is necessary to go a little beyond what is
stated by Hegel himself, it would suggest that master and slave are
related as follows : the self-consciousness of the slave is the immedi­
ate self-consciousness of one whose self-consciousness, although
perhaps duplicated, has not progressed to one-sided, let alone
mutual recognition. This self-consciousness is shattered in the fight
with the result that the object of the slave's self-consciousness
becomes the consciousness of another individual, the master, with­
out the object of the master's self-consciousness thereby becoming
the slave's consciousness. From this position of one-sided recogni­
itself but the consciousness of his master, the slave is emancipated
first by the fact that not having an individual self-consciousness is the
experience of universal self-consciousness, and, secondly, by the
fact that through work, he once again becomes the object of his
own self-consciousness (i. e universal self-consciousness). His self­
consciousness then has as a double object itself and the master. Being
thus doubly and universally self-conscious, the slave can no longer be
a slave, because slavery is having for the object of self-consciousness
the consciousness of another, and although the slave does have as his
object of self-consciousness the consciousness of another he also
has his own consciousness. The result of the dialectic is therefore
that the servile self-consciousness is no longer merely servile : it has
2 34 S e e i ng T h i n g s H i d d e n
become "a being which thinks or is a free self-consciousness", and the
individual whose self-consciousness became merely servile is no
longer a slave.
D oubl e C onsciousn e ss
In the Phenomenology, the result of the dialectic is that the
servile consciousness recognises its own being for-self and
the being for-self of the master consciousness without grasping
the identity of the two. For the servile consciousness, therefore,
the outcome is that instead of having a single object (as was the case
when self-consciousnesses were merely duplicated) it now
has a double object: the self-consciousness of the master and the
self-consciousness of itself. In reality, these are the same because
both are universal self-consciousness, but their identity remains
unperceived by the servile self-consciousness. 1 09 The situation is
therefore the same as that of the unhappy consciousness where
"the duplication which formerly was divided between two individ­
uals, the lord and the bondsman, is now lodged in one. . . . [but]
it is not as yet explicitly aware that this is its essential nature, or
that it is the unity of both". 1 1 0
In the Propaedeutic, this transition is implicitly interpreted at an
interpersonal level and invested with greater significance: it is "the
transition to Positive Freedom", in which the former servile self­
consciousness attains universal self-consciousness and so "recognizes
itself and the other Self-Consciousnesses within it, and is, in turn,
recognized by them". 1 1 1 This conclusion is restated in the
Encyclopaedia, where Hegel avers that "universal self-consciousness is
the affirmative awareness of self in an other self". 1 1 2 The appended
Zusatz gives a fuller explanation of what this means:
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s te r� S l av e D i a l e c t i c 235
I n this state o f universal freedom, i n being reflected into
myself, I am immediately reflected into the other person, and,
conversely, in relating myself to the other I am immediately
self-related. Here, therefore, we have the violent diremption of
mind or spirit into different selves which are both in and for
themselves and for one another, are independent, absolutely
impenetrable, resistant, and yet at the same time identical
with one another, hence not independent, not impenetrable,
but, as it were, fused with one another. 1 1 3
The contradictory nature of the dialectic at an interpersonal level is
here stated as unambiguously as it can be. Just as the slave, in recog­
nising himself to be free, comes to recognise himself in the master,
so, when the slave is free, the master comes to see himself in the
slave. This development is then the model for the mutual recogni­
tion of all by all which characterises universal self-consciousness.
Each recognises himself in the other, so everyone is simultaneously
different and yet the same.
How does this recognition of self in others relate to the doubling
of self-consciousness which resulted from the intrapersonal dialectic?
When the dialectic is conceived at an interpersonal level the same
result, namely the recognition that the self-consciousness has a
double object, has a wider significance. It makes separate individuals
into persons who are both distinct from and the same as one another
rather than just making the self-consciousness's consciousness of
itself into a consciousness of something that appears to be two dif­
ferent consciousnesses. But the shift in the significance of the
outcome of the dialectic is not just a matter of its transposition from
the intrapersonal to the interpersonal. The results are not distinct,
for the double or multiple self-consciousness of individuals is the
necessary corollary of universal self-consciousness in that there is no
236 Seeing Things H idden
other way to describe interpersonal universal self-consciousness
except in terms of universal multipersonal self-consciousness. If uni­
versal self-consciousness is conceived interpersonally (rather
than impersonally) as the mutual recognition of self in the other, then
the self-consciousness of all who have universal self-consciousness
must also recognise the other in the self. And since self-consciousness
necessarily takes as its object a self-consciousness (itself) , it
must recognise that self-consciousness as simultaneously
both self and other. In other words, you can only have interper­
sonal universal self-consciousness if you have individual double
(and potentially multiple) consciousness, for if each individual self­
consciousness qua individual took as its object a unified universal
self-consciousness then there would not be one univeral self­
consciousness but many different ones, and so none at all.
Read in the context of the Aristotelian framework within which
it is constructed, the outcome of Hegel's master-slave dialectic
proves to be pointedly anti-Aristotelian. Aristotle had argued that
there was a clear and unalterable division between slave and free,
and that the institution of slavery, in its natural rather than its legal
form, depended upon that division. But by Hegel's time, this theory
was clearly incompatible with the development of slavery in world
history. That there had been slavery in many societies was indis­
putable, but so was the fact that slavery had disappeared from many
of those societies and was moving towards abolition in the Americas.
Aristotle had made no allowance for wholesale emancipation; in
terms of his theory, it would mean either that none of those eman­
cipated had ever really been slaves or else that all were still slaves and
so incapable of self-government or of forming a state. 1 1 4 However,
it was a matter of history that in Haiti slaves had formed a state. If,
as Hegel appears to have done, one still thought of slavery in essen­
tially Aristotelian terms, then the simplest way to interpret the
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l ave D i a l e c t i c 237
evolution of slavery into freedom was to allow that contradiction
which Aristotle had excluded: the idea that freemen might really be
slaves, and that true slaves might not be just slaves but become free
as well.
In both Hegel and Aristotle, the master-slave dyad is an inter­
personal relation constructed as an intrapersonal one. In both cases
this is made possible through the homology between mastery and
slavery at an interpersonal level and some internal relationship con­
stitutive of the individual person. In Aristotle, this is the relation of
soul to body; in Hegel it is the relationship of self-consciousness to
itself. For both philosophers, the condition of slavery is one in which
the dominant internal pole of the master is related to the subordi­
nated internal pole of the slave in the same way as it would be
related to its own internal subordinate. One consequence of con­
ceiving slavery in this way is that the potentially dominant pole of the
subordinated individual remains, not of course fulfilling a dominant
role, but as an unfulfilled potential or ineffectual residuum .
According to Hegel, the irony of the master-slave relation lies in the
fact that this potentially dominant pole is developed through the
condition of slavery itself; i.e. as a direct result of the subordinate
pole's subordination to another. It is because the servile self-con­
sciousness of the slave is dissolved and then used as a mere
instrument that it gains recognition from itself, and so develops its
own dominant pole - a recognised self-consciousness - alongside
that of the master. If Hegel's dialectic were translated back into
Aristotelian terms, it would mean that because his body functioned
as an instrument of action the slave's soul became complete and so
gained the same control of the body as that exercised by the master.
The result would therefore be two complete souls in one body
rather than two recognised self-consciousnesses in one person, and
not just any two souls but the souls of master and slave - in
238 Se eing Things Hidden
Aristotelian terms a double impossibility, for the soul of a master
could govern a slave's body if, and only if, the slave's soul were
incapable of doing so.
Two souls in one body might have seemed like an impossibility
to Aristotle, yet in animal magnetism there was new, seemingly
scientific, evidence to suggest not only that one soul might govern
two bodies but that one body might contain two souls. From
Puysegur's first experiments with magnetic sleep it was apparent
that the difference between the waking and magnetic states of one
individual were such that they had to be regarded as "two different
existences". 1 1 5 As one German contemporary of Hegel put it, the
somnambulist "has a double being, one in the waking state, one in
the magnetic crisis", with the result that his "self-consciousness in
the waking and the magnetic states appears to be truly double" . 1 1 6
In most accounts, this double consciousness is understood to take
the form of an alternation between magnetic and waking states.
However, in so far as the somnambulist retained some form of
selfhood, the doubling in the magnetic state could be simultaneous.
In Hegel's account, the somnambulist loses her "adult, formed,
and developed consciousness" but "retains along with its content a
certain nominal self-hood". 1 1 7 In this condition, therefore, the
individual is not self-consciousness but rather "a genius which
beholds itself" , with the consequence that in relation to the
magnetiser
When the substance of both is thus made one, there is only
one subjectivity of consciousness: the patient ha;\ sort of
individuality, but it is empty, not on the spot, not actual. . . .
the somnambulist is thus brought into rapport with two genii
and a twofold set of ideas, his own and that of the magne­
tizer. 1 1 8
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s te r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 239
So although the somnambulist has only one consciousness ,
that of the magnetiser, he nevertheless retains his own genius
alongside that of the magnetiser with whom he is in rapport. The
doubling that takes place in the master-slave dialectic would seem to
conform to this pattern, except that the double self-consciousness
that results is not the product of the conjunction of the master/mag­
netiser's consciousness and the slave / somnambulist's normal
consciousness, but the conjunction of the master's consciousness
with the slave's universal consciousness gained through slavery.
Hegel discussed animal magnetism at length only after he had
formulated his master-slave dialectic, but the close parallels
between the two suggest not only that Hegel's account of som­
nambulism may reflect the structure of the dialectic, but that the
dialectic may itself draw on magnetic theory. It is impossible to
prove this hypothesis beyond doubt, but given that Hegel's account
of animal magnetism is by no means unusual and that all the rele­
vant ideas were in circulation long before Hegel formulated the
dialectic, the parallels are unlikely to be fortuitous. As Robert
Darnton has demonstrated, mesmerism provided a stimulus to rad­
ical political ideas before the French Revolution, and its emphasis
upon the magnetic interconnectedness of all individuals lent sup­
port to theories of human equality and fraternity. 1 1 9 For Hegel,
trying to square an essentially static Aristotelian conception of slav­
ery with the historical dynamic of emancipation, the theory of
animal magnetism may therefore have offered two vital insights
into how slavery was transformed into freedom. It undermined
that belief in the unity of the soul upon which Aristotle had
insisted, and provided a way of describing how being enslaved, like
being magnetised, might paradoxically be a step towards univer­
sality and freedom.
240 Seeing Things Hidden
Du B ois
The close analogy between Hegel's master-slave dialectic and the
practice of animal magnetism may not have attracted much attention
from Hegel scholars, but it was nevertheless intuited by Du Bois,
who fused the two in his famous description of the double con­
sciousness of the African American:
After the Egyptian and the Indian, the Greek and Roman,
the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh
son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in
this American world, - a world which yields him no true self­
consciousness, but only lets him see himself through
the revelation of the other world . It is a peculiar sensation,
this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at
oneself through the eyes of others. . . . One ever feels this
twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two
unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body. 1 2 0
Although it has been noted that the idea of double consciousness
reflects contemporary psychological theories derived from early
nineteenth-century experiments in magnetism, and that it echoes
Hegel's account of the unhappy consciousness in the PhenomenolofJ.Y,
the intimate connection between the two remains unexplored and the
depth of Du Bois's Hegelian insight unfathomed. 1 2 1 What has not
been fully recognised is not only that for Du Bois double conscious­
ness and the veil are two ways of describing the same condition, but
that the imagery of veiling and second sight is just as much part of the
vocabulary of animal magnetism as double consciousness, and as such
is used by Hegel himself. The attribution of double consciousness to
emancipated slaves is therefore not just a literary appropriation of a
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s te r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 241
Hegelian trope, 1 22 but a redeployment of the vocabulary of magnet­
ism to elaborate the outcome of emancipation within the same terms
as those used in Hegel's master-slave dialectic.
For Du Bois, the veil has three related functions. Sometimes it is
the veil of the reader's ignorance which the author promises to throw
aside in order to reveal a truth that is hidden from view. More often
it is the veil that divides black from white within American society,
preventing members of each group from understanding the other. In
drawing aside the veil, Du Bois is therefore not just uncovering any
truth but specifically the truth about the black world that is hidden
from his white readers. On other occasions, however, it appears
that the veil lies not between black and white but rather within black
American consciousness, dividing one consciousness from the other
within a single individual. In so far as this is the case, unveiling the
truth about black people means not just revealing that something is
veiled but revealing something veiled, something that continues to be
partially hidden even as it is uncovered .
I t i s the veil within consciousness that i s movingly evoked by Du
Bois in his description of his own son in "Of the Passing of the First­
Born":
How beautiful he was, with his olive-tinted flesh and dark
gold ringlets, his eyes of mingled blue and brown . . . . Why
was his hair tinted with gold? . . . . Why had not the brown of
his eyes crushed out and killed the blue? . . . . And thus in the
Land of the Color-line I saw, as it fell across my baby, the
shadow of the Veil. 1 2 3
And just as the mixed ancestry ofDu Bois's child contributed to the
double coding of his features, so the double lives of American
Negroes create a comparable doubling within:
242 S e e in g Things H i d d e n
From the double life every American Negro must live, as a
Negro and as an American . . . must arise a painful self-con­
sciousness, an almost morbid sense of personality and a moral
hesitancy which is fatal to self-confidence. The worlds within
and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rap­
idly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this
must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar
sense of doubt and bewilderment. Such a double life, with
double thoughts , double duties, and double social classes,
must give rise to double words and double ideals. 1 24
According to Du Bois, the interpersonal veil that divides black from
white in America is internalised, with the result that the black
American develops not merely the two consciousnesses appropriate
to being a (white) American on the one hand and a black (non­
American) but also the veil between them. And because white and
black are veiled from one another, the American Negro is veiled
from himself, able to see himself either as an American or as a
Negro but not as both at the same time.
Although Du Bois regards the double consciousness and the veil
as a partially negative state of affairs, there can be little doubt that it
only exists as a result of the growing rapport between white and
black. It is never explicitly stated by Du Bois, but of the social
changes that formed double consciousness the most important was
the slow, painful dawning of mutual recognition between slave and
master which Hegel called "the affirmative awareness of self in an
other self", 1 2 5 and which Cavell envisages as presaging the dissolu­
tion of slavery:
should [the master] cede, or [the slaves] find, the power
to acknowledge him, to see him as other to their one,
C o m i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t er � S l av e D i a l e c t i c 243
power to see his experience as he sees it, then he would see
himself through their eyes, and they would know that they had
seen themselves through his, and he would number his days. 1 2 6
Du Bois's own account of this process comes in a lyrical passage in
his essay on Alexander Crummell:
The nineteenth was the first century of human sympathy, � the
age when half wonderingly we began to descry in others that
transfigured spark of divinity which we call Myself; when
clodhopper and peasants, and tramps and thieves, and mil­
lionaires and � sometimes - Negroes, became throbbing souls
whose warm pulsing life touched us so nearly that we half
gasped with surprise, crying, "Thou too ! Hast Thou seen
Sorrow and the dull waters of Hopelessness? Hast Thou
known Life?" And then all helplessly we peered into those
Other-worlds, and wailed, "0 World of Worlds, how shall I'
!
man make you one?" 1 2 7
The diffusion of human sympathy meant that white Americans were
able to see that blacks were Americans too. On the other side, it
meant that blacks saw themselves in white Americans. For the young
Alexander Crummell, the effect of this spreading recognition was a
new ability to picture himself within the world of the master, to see,
as Du Bois puts it, "the blue and gold of life". For black Americans
whose consciousness was formed in this period, it might therefore
be said that they were born with the psychic equivalent of the divi­
sion that Du Bois saw physically inscribed on his own son: with only
the shadow of the veil separating the blue and gold from the brown
and the olive.
Being born with a veil is therefore not quite the same as being
244 Seeing Things Hidden
born within the veil. It is not just a matter of being born black in a
white man's world; it is rather the condition of being born black in a
world that is divided but, thanks to the diffusion of human sympathy
and the ending of slavery, also imaginatively interconnected and
practically interdependent. 1 28 It is the conjunction of the two which
ensures that the external veil becomes an internal one, and that the
post-bellum generation of African Americans are not so much
unknown as partially known, both visible and invisible at the same
time.
The corollary of this is, as Du Bois puts it, that the American
black is both ''born with a veil, and gifted with second sight". The
imagery is again drawn from the vocabulary of magnetism .
According to the nineteenth-century British magnetist William
Gregory, when the magnetist, or operator, puts the patient into
a trance "there is in many cases a veil, as it were, drawn
before the [patient's] eyes, concealing the operator's face and
other objects". 1 29 The result, as Hegel stated, was that when
the soul is sunk in magnetic sleep "all that occupies the waking
consciousness, the world outside it and its relationship to that
world, is under a veil". 1 30
In the Philosophy if Mind, the relationship between veiling and
second sight is spelt out in a Zusatz dealing with the possibility of
the somnambulist's clairvoyant knowledge of future events,
which Hegel, using the English phrase, terms "second sight".
According to Hegel, when magnetised
The clairvoyant is in a state of concentration and contemplates
this veiled life of his with all its content in a concentrated
manner. In the determinateness of this concentrated state, the
determinations of space and time are also veiled. . . . But
since the clairvoyant is, at the same time, an ideational being he
C om i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e ct i c 245
must make outwardly apparent these determinations veiled in
his concentrated life. 1 3 1
In other words, although the feeling soul of the somnambulist may
apprehend something without the mediation of time, it is neverthe­
less expressed through the mediation of time, so that it effectively
(although not metaphysically) constitutes knowledge of a future
event. Hegel is unwilling to allow that this ability extends very far,
but nevertheless asserts that "Especially among Highlanders, the
faculty of so-called 'second sight' is even now not uncommon.
Persons with this gift see themselves double , see themselves in
situations and circumstances in which they will find themselves only
subsequently." 1 3 2
Although Hegel applies "second sight" only to premonitions of the
future, in most accounts of magnetism the term was used to
describe all forms of clairvoyant ability in the magnetic state. So
although a somnambulist might be veiled in the sense that she was
unable to see what was immediately in front of her, she could
nevertheless simultaneously acquire a second sight, a clairvoyant
ability to see things that she would not normally be able to see,
such as events that had not yet taken place, the contents of rooms she
had not visited, etc. Being veiled and clairvoyant are therefore two
aspects of the same condition, and the result is potentially a form of
double vision in that if (as Hegel forgetfully suggests) the ordinary
waking consciousness were not under a veil, the somnambulist
would see both what she would ordinarily see and what she sees with
her second sight.
How then does this pattern of veiling and second sight relate to
the condition of double consciousness (or, as Hegel put it, twofold
genius)? Since a somnambulist is veiled in that she is unable to see
what would be seen by her usual consciousness, and clairvoyant in so
--
246 Seeing Things Hidden
far as she sees what is visible to her second consciousness, if that con­
sciousness is that of the magnetiser, she sees what he sees, but if she
is open to other influences, she may see what they see. Veiling and
clairvoyance are, in other words, ways of describing the condition of
double consciousness from the perspective of the single conscious­
ness: what is veiled is simply the content of the first consciousness,
what is seen with second sight is what is seen with the second con­
sciousness. (However, if one conceives of two consciousnesses with
equal claims to priority, there is no reason why one should not
reverse the terms and think of the second consciousness as veiled
whenever the first consciousness is operating, and of "first sight" as
a kind of clairvoyance. )
There is, in other words, a deep coherence in Du Bois's imagery
of veiling, double consciousness and second sight, not only in that
they can all be traced to Hegel, but in that they are all recognisably
descriptions of the same magnetic condition. But in applying these
terms to the emancipated slave, Du Bois is clearly not just appro­
priating the vocabulary of magnetic theory for his own purposes, for
Hegel had himself suggested that the outcome of the master-slave
dialectic, and, by implication, the struggle for emancipation in the
Americas, was a form of double consciousness. Du Bois is, in other
words, drawing on the magnetic parallel to the master-slave dialec­
tic to explicate the outcome of the dialectic itself. And although Du
Bois does not deploy the full version of argument from the
PhenomenoloBY (with its emphasis on fear and work) , the Aristotelian
assumption that slavery is an interpersonal relationship that has the
form of an intrapersonal one is retained. The basic reason for double
consciousness is that those who possess it have been possessed by
others. They see themselves through the eyes of another because
their minds have been taken over by others. However, the funda­
mental Hegelian move which Du Bois preserves is that emancipation
C om i n g i n t o H i d i n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c ti c 247
does not take the form of throwing off this parasitic consciousness
but of gaining one's own sense of self in addition to it, and as a
result not only seeing the other in oneself, but seeing one's self not
only in one's self but in the other as well.
Implicit within Du Bois's construction of the situation is the idea
that as a result of universal sympathy extending across interper­
sonal boundaries, interpersonal division is henceforth a function of
this intrapersonal division . In other words , although African
Americans may become possessed of double consciousness because
of the interpersonal veil, after the spread of universal sympathy the
interpersonal veil exists only because of the intrapersonal one. The
African American becomes unseeable not because she is completely
veiled but because the veil that divides her double consciousness pre­
vents her from being seen, or from seeing herself, in her entirety.
Because one consciousness is veiled from the other, any observer
will be aware of only one consciousness at a time and will see the
possessor of double consciousness as having only a single conscious­
ness, and although double consciousness brings with it the gift of
second sight, that only allows those with double consciousness to see
what cannot be seen with the first consciousness, not the first con­
sciousness itself. Because of the internal veil, the African American
will be seen (and will see herself) either as an African or as an
American. The dawning of mutual recognition, the ability to see self
in other and other in self, brings with it a new form of mutual
incomprehension - the inability to see others (or one's self) in their
(or its) totality.
By using the imagery of veiling to describe the condition of slaves
after emancipation, Du Bois demonstrates that the paradoxical
result of mutual recognition is the dawning of a new and more
complex form of misrecognition, and that the revelation of contra­
dictory truth embodied in the master-slave dialectic can only be
 C o m i n g i n t o H i di n g : M a s t e r - S l av e D i a l e c t i c 249
248 Seeing Things Hidden

many decades. Indeed, these texts have become more than merely
understood as a coming into hiding. This feature of African
descriptive of the conditions they address; they have become inter­
American experience was given greater emphasis in Pauline
woven with the histories of domination and emancipation to such an
Hopkins's novel, OJ One Blood; or, The Hidden Self ( 1 902-3), which
extent that they are now constitutive of the social realities they
conjoins Du Bois's Hegelian emphasis on the double consciousness of
describe.
the emancipated slave with William James's account of "the mutual
This is due in large measure to the paradigmatic nature of the nar­
ignorance of the selves" in double consciousness in his essay
rative of slavery and emancipation within western society. The
"The Hidden Self". 1 33 But whereas Du Bois focuses on the continued
emancipation of slaves has long been recognised as the first in a
veiling of the Americanness of the African American, even after
sequence of emancipations in which identification with and acknowl­
emancipation, for Hopkins, the emphasis is upon the hidden
edgement of the members of other classes , genders, races, ages and
African self that lies submerged within the assimilated identity.
species has , to varying degrees, led to their conceptual, social and
Nevertheless, the two authors' articulation of the phenomenon of
legal recognition on terms of equality with those who were previ­
hiddenness is essentially the same : the doubling that arises from
ously their masters. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that
integration leads to a new form of separation in which the old divi­
such emancipations have been the central experience of late moder­
sion between master and slave, black and white, becomes an internal
nity, for the vast majority of people who live within contemporary
division in which one identity is always hidden.
society enjoy whatever legal and social status they have as a direct
result of them. The texts of Aristotle, Hegel and Du Bois may there­
fore be taken not just as an account of slavery and emancipation but
C o m ing i nt o H i d i ng
also as a potentially illuminating account of one of the crucial
dynamics of modernity.
The accounts of slavery given by Aristotle, Hegel and Du Bois are of
In the next chapter, I will discuss the social consequences of
importance at several levels. Not only do they constitute a linked
emancipation in more detail. Here, I want to draw out the implica­
sequence of texts describing the condition of the (ex-)slave before,
tions of the Aristotle-Hegel-Du Bois narrative for the account of
during and after emancipation, but each of these narratives has
hiddenness given in the previous chapter. The questions with which
enjoyed a unique prestige as an account of the events it describes:
that chapter ended were: first, why do we now see the world aspec­
Aristotle's theory of slavery provided a ready-made justification of
tivally rather than perspectivally, and, secondly, why should the shift
slaveholding for centuries; Hegel's master-slave dialectic has been
to aspectival perception be accompanied by the recognition that the
recognised not only as an illuminating description of the process of
aspects we see are so contradictory and manifold as to hide one
emancipation from slavery, but also as a narrative applicable to
another? Lukacs 's answer to the first question was that the de-alien­
emancipations of class (Marx), gender (Beauvoir) and race (Fanon) ;
ation of the world was the product of the de-alienation of labour
Du Bois's account of the double consciousness has been used to
resulting from the revolutionary totalisation of the proletariat. In
articulate African American and other post-colonial identities for
--
250 S e e in g Things H id d e n
trying to give some substance to Lukacs's eschatological myth, I
suggested that we might look at the history of slavery and emanci­
pation as the best historical example of alienation and de-alienation.
But pursuing the narrative of slavery and emancipation through
Aristotle, Hegel and Du Bois to its conclusion in the idea of the
"hidden self" suggests that Lukacs's account may perhaps help us to
answer the second question as well.
In order to see how this might be the case, it is necessary to
recapitulate the argument. Aristotle's theory highlighted two
features of slavery crucial to subsequent interpretations. The first
was that the easiest way to express the contradictions of slavery was
by assuming that slaves had a dual identity: one qua slave and one
qua human being; one in which they functioned like a soulless body
or tool, and one in which they had a soul like, but not quite the
same as, the free. The second was that in so far as the slave was a
slave, the master's humanity took the place of the slave's, with the
result that the slave became part of the master, a soulless body
governed by the master's soul. According to Aristotle, identifying
someone as a slave was essentially a matter of seeing the robotic
soulless aspect they shared with tools, animals and foreigners.
Seeing this aspect necessarily precluded seeing those who possessed
it as ensouled in the way that full humans are ensouled, for the
characteristic feature of this aspect was its soulless mechanicity.
Nevertheless, Aristotle allowed that slaves did in fact have souls of
a sort, although what qualities they possessed and which they lacked
seems to have remained uncertain. Seeing slaves as alien beings
also involved seeing them as alien and so having to enumerate such
human attributes as they might or might not possess. Put in other
terms, we could say that Aristotle is soul-blind to slaves in that the
aspect he sees is their instrumentality, and even though he is of
I
the opinion that they do indeed have souls, their souls have never
11
' •.
!
C oming into Hiding : M a ster-Slave D i a l e c ti c 251
dawned for him and so he assumes that they need to b e governed by
the souls of others .
This structure i s replicated i n Hegel's master-slave dialectic,
with the additional feature that the struggle that leads to the relation
of mastery and slavery is pictured as an attempt to bring about that
asymmetry which the master-slave relation embodies. (The fight for
recognition is an attempt to be seen as ensouled, to force the dawn­
ing of one's humanity on someone else, and so to avoid being seen as
a mere instrument. ) But, unlike Aristotle, Hegel draws out the
implications of the doubling involved in this asymmetry, for animal
magnetism had provided a seemingly scientific example of how psy­
chic duality might be realised. Aristotle's account of how the master
used a slave as a soul used a body suggested that slavery might be
seen as something akin to spirit possession in which the body of one
individual was possessed by the spirit or soul of another. Hegel's
dialectic brings out the connection between soul-blindness and pos­
session. Seeing others (or oneself) as a mere tool rather than a soul
suggests that their (or one's own) actions are those of someone who
is using them (or is being used) as a tool. Soul-blindness therefore
has the effect of assuming that those who are seen as robotic are
actually animated, or could be animated, from the outside; it puts
someone else's soul inside their machine . There is, in other words,
an inverse relationship between recognition and possession: in
recognising the souls of others as akin to our own we cede our claim
to possess them; in the refusal of recognition we stake that claim.
Conversely, recognising other in self is an acknowledgement of one's
own instrumentality, one's capacity to be possessed. So, according to
Hegel, the master's non-recognition of self in other combined with
the slave's recognition of self in other and other in self amounts to
the master's psychic possession of the slave, the master's self literally
taking the place of the slave's.
--

Seeing Things H i d d e n C oming into Hiding: Master-Slave D i a lectic 253

252

In the accounts of emancipation given by Hegel and Du Bois, it is o f consciousness. When the slave was not recognised the master's

assumed that recognising the humanity which is not recognised in consciousness possessed the slave, but the slave 's consciousness did

slavery is not just a matter of computing the human characteristics not possess the master or indeed himself. When the slave 's soul

the slave possesses, or of obtaining some additional information dawns, both for himself and for the master, he gains another con­

about slaves and their habits , but of seeing something that is already sciousness, his own, alongside that of the master. In other words,

visible in a different way, of identifying with the other, recognising emancipation works not (as might be supposed) by the consciousness

a communality of experience and substance. This process of recog­ of the slave ejecting the psychic parasite but by developing another

nition can aptly be described as soul-dawning for two reasons: first, consciousness in addition to it. Here lies one of the paradoxes of this

it involves the slave's seeing in himself, and the master's seeing in the model of emancipation. The slave 's self-consciousness develops not

slave, just that indefinable humanity that was previously supposed to through being recognised as a slave, for it was being recognised as a

be absent; secondly, the way this happens has the peculiar quality of slave that condemned him to slavery in the first place ; it develops as

revelation, of seeing something that was there all along and had it is recognised as a master self-consciousness, in other words as the

inexplicably remained unperceived, but is now impossible to miss. master recognises himself in the slave. Recognising self in other is

But how does this process of soul-dawning relate to what was pre­ not a matter of seeing oneself possessing the other, but of acknowl­

viously seen by the master? edging their self-possession, their self-mastery. Hence, for Du Bois,

Aristotle had argued that slaves were tools that functioned as it is by being recognised as American that peasants, tramps and

though they had no souls of their own, but, nevertheless, had a cer­ Negroes ''became throbbing souls", not American souls but peasant,

tain form of humanity that could be discerned alongside their tramp or Negro souls. However, as Hegel and Du Bois both imply,

robotic qualities. In Hegel's dialectical articulation of emancipation, and as Cavell's account of acknowledgement emphasises, full recog­

it is these traces of humanity (the potentially dominant internal pole nition of self in other also means the recognition of other in self. In

of the slave's self-consciousness) that are formed into a master self­ slavery, the slave has already been forced to recognise other in self;

consciousness through the experience of slavery. Soul-dawning does if the master is to do so as well, he has to acknowledge not just the

not transform a slave into something else so that it is no longer pos­ slave, but the slave's claim upon him, the slave's capacity to use and

sible to see her as a slave; it rather changes the way she is seen in such possess him.

a way that allows her to be seen as a person as well as a slave, and It is now perhaps possible to see why the de-alienation of alien­

thus as an enslaved person. Similarly, for Du Bois the process of ated persons might be associated both with the de-alienation of the

emancipation meant not the transformation of black into white, but world and with a coming into hiding. Seeing large numbers of one's

the realisation that black might be seen as American as well as black. fellow humans as alien things without recognising their kinship with

Hegel's coupling of non-recognition and possession allows us to oneself inevitably means seeing them as alien and treating all that

see how emancipation, as the dawning of a new aspect in addition to makes them human, and the human meanings that they make, in a

the previously robotic one, might also be interpreted as a doubling perspectival fashion. Emancipation, in so far as it involves the
----

254 S e e ing Things Hidden Coming into Hiding : Master-Slave D ialectic 255

acknowledgement of others, is itself a form of aspect-dawning in is also a coming into hiding is a direct consequence of the degree
which the alienation of the other is overcome in such a way that the of de-alienation involved. Slavery is one of the most radical forms of
other may thereafter still be seen aspectivally as an alien but not as alienation and it is therefore hardly surprising that, for those
alien. Yet, soul-dawning demands more than seeing a face in the who experienced de-alienation from slavery, emancipation was also
clouds: it is, as Hegel, Cavell and Du Bois all suggest, not just a case experienced as a coming into hiding.
of seeing something new but of acknowledging oneself in the other,
of treating the other as something that shares in whatever one has
oneself. Even more than other forms of aspect-dawning, soul-dawn­
ing makes us intimate with the world by drawing it closer to us. It
therefore potentially contributes to the de-alienation of the world
not only by virtue of being a case of aspectival rather than perspec­
tival perception, but also in making a direct contribution to the
de-alienation of the alienated world on which perspectivalism
depends.
The multiple emancipations of modernity help to explain our
newfound willingness to see more of the world aspectivally in that
instead of seeing members of other races, genders, classes, nations
and species as alien beings, we now acknowledge their kinship with
ourselves, not yet perhaps completely, but nevertheless to a degree
that would simply astonish the members of previous generations.
However, at the same time as the de-alienation of subordinated
social groups may have contributed to the de-alienation of the world,
it may also have created a world which has aspects that are mutually
incompatible and contradictory. This is liable to happen whenever
the dawning aspect is incompatible with what is seen previously.
And dawning aspects are usually incompatible with what is seen by
the aspect-blind - the dawning of a duck is incompatible with seeing
the duck-rabbit as a figure, just as it is with seeing it as a rabbit -
and, in the case of people, if the soul dawns on the soul-blind it is
something radically incompatible with seeing the person as a robot.
Indeed, it may be argued that the degree to which emancipation
-
7 The relationship between the self, society and morality has recently
L i v i n g i n Hi d i n g : T h e
M u l ti p l e S e l f
In the last chapter I argued that the process through which the world
has come into hiding as an unseeable totality has been characterised
by the gradual recognition of unknowable true contradictions. The
slow dawning on the European consciousness that slaves and humans
(in the sense of full humans) were not mutually exclusive categories
but rather categories united in the contradictory reality of New
World slaveries is one example, significant both as a paradigm for
the coming into hiding of numerous other social contradictions,
and as the model for the first attempts to interpret the process. Yet
can the interpretation of subordination and emancipation in terms of
the recognition of previously invisible but now merely hidden iden­
tities be said to have any bearing on the social and personal
construction of identity within contemporary societies? And if so,
how should the moral discourse of those societies seek to accom­
modate the contradictory complexity of the individuals within
them?
Living in H iding : The M ultiple Self 257
T h e S elf
been explored by Alasdair Macintyre and Charles Taylor. Although
their positions are by no means identical, both writers treat ques­
tions about the morality of actions or agents as secondary to those
about the identity of the moral subject. And because it is considered
vital to relate moral philosophy to the analysis of personal identity,
the historical developments that have fashioned that identity become
important as well. For Macintyre and Taylor, the history of ideas
offers a uniquely promising way of reanimating moral philosophy,
and Taylor in particular has devoted much energy to tracing the
formation of the modern self in the belief that the resulting narrative
will reveal the framework within which our moral intuitions are
articulated. 1
It is difficult to dismiss the simple but powerful insight that
underlies this project. Since no one is likely to argue that morality
involves acting or treating others in ways that are inappropriate to
who we and they are, it does seem to suggest that if we can only gain
a full understanding of our identities, we should also start to get a
sense of how we ought to live. But even if this basic premiss is
accepted, it may still be argued that the project has been formulated
in such a way as to prejudge the findings of any historical investiga­
tion. Macintyre famously remarked that a moral philosophy
presupposes a sociology. 2 This involves two claims : first, that all
moralities make some assumptions about the identity of moral
agents , and, secondly, that there is no way to define a moral agent
without reference to their social and historical context. Taylor
defends both at greater length than Macintyre himself. What differ­
entiates moral reactions from gut reactions like nausea is, he
suggests , the fact that the former are open to question, explanation
258 Seeing Things Hidden
and correction in a way that the latter are not. In other words, our
moral intuitions are distinguished by the fact that they have a frame­
work within which they can be articulated and evaluated, a
framework that invariably seems "to involve claims, implicit or
explicit, about the nature and status of human beings". Moral intu­
ition therefore presupposes what Taylor terms "a given ontology of
the human". 3
The move from ontology to sociology is effected through the
consideration of what is involved in personal identity and, in par­
ticular, the kind of personal identity presupposed by moral intuition.
What Taylor terms the "punctual self", defmed solely in terms of the
continuity of its self-perception, provides an inadequate framework
for the consideration of moral agency because it excludes self-inter­
pretation. As individuals, and especially as moral individuals, "We
are selves only in that certain things matter for us. What I am as a
self, my identity, is essentially defined by the way things have signif­
icance for me."4 Self-interpretation in this sense is inescapably a
linguistic activity, and as languages require linguistic communities,
so self-interpretation requires a community, not just to provide a
language, but to provide the social meanings of selfhood within
which any self-interpretation is articulated. As Taylor observes,
One is a self only among other selves. A self can never be
described without reference to those who surround it. . . . I
define who I am by defming where I speak from, in the family
tree, in social space, in the geography of social statuses and
functions. 5
In Macintyre, the same conclusion is stated still more forcefully:
The story of my life is always embedded in the story of those
Living in Hiding : The Multiple Self 259
communities from which I derive my identity. I am born with
a past; and to try to cut myself off from that past, in the indi­
vidualist mode, is to deform my present relationships . The
possession of an historical identity and the possession of a
social identity coincide. 6
Unless you want to maintain that it is possible to have a productive
conversation about morality without knowing who the conversation
is about, or else that all we need to know about moral agents is that
they have continuous self-consciousness, these conclusions seem
unobjectionable. But even if we accept that abstract moral discourse
is always about people in all their social and historical particularity,
the next stage of the argument may appear rather more problematic.
According to Taylor, moral selves are not neutral, punctual
objects because "what counts as an object will be defined by the
scope of the concern, by just what is in question". He then goes on
to suggest that since in moral intuition "what is in question is, gen­
erally and characteristically, the shape of my life as a whole" , the self
must be conceived as a unity, and I have to consider "my whole past
life as that of a single self".7 The argument that underlies this pro­
gression from wholeness to unity to singleness is largely derived
from Macintyre, who makes the same moves, arguing first that "the
unity of a virtue in someone's life is intelligible only as a character­
istic of a unitary life, a life that can be conceived and evaluated as a
whole", and later that "the unity of an individual life" consists in "the
unity of a narrative embodied in a single life". On this interpretation,
personal identity is "just that identity presupposed by the unity of the
character which the unity of a narrative requires". 8
The problem with these arguments is that they can progress only
by exploiting the ambiguity of the terminology and moving from a
whole / part distinction via the unity I disunity opposition to a
-
260 S e e ing Things Hidden
single /multiple dichotomy. Because considering something as a
whole means considering it in its entirety, Taylor suggests first that
it must be considered not just exhaustively but also simultaneously,
as a unified totality; and, secondly, that it must be considered as a
unity not just in the sense that it is a totality but that it is a single
undivided object. However, this is not necessarily the case. If it is
half-time in the World Cup Final and the TV commentator suggests
to the panel that they should discuss the game "as a whole", this
implies that they should not focus exclusively on the goals, that no
player or incident should be omitted from consideration, and it
might additionally, although not necessarily, be taken as encourage­
ment for musings about the entirety of the match as a unified entity.
However, even thinking about the match in this sense would hardly
lead anyone to suppose that the subject of the unified narrative was
a single unified character. On the contrary, far from being the soli­
tary hero of the narrative, it is only possible to make sense of the
match on the assumption that it has a dual character, and that there
are two competing protagonists. And if the panellists move on to
consider the championship as a whole, they will find that this
involves numerous simultaneous narratives, most with protagonists
who disappear long before the end of the story. When Taylor and
Macintyre refer to human life as a "quest", they have in mind some­
thing more like the quest for the Holy Grail than the World Cup, yet
there seems no reason why one type of teleological narrative should
be considered more representative than the other. The whole story
may be the complete story, but it does not necessarily consist of a
unified narrative with a single character.
Taylor is tempted to conclude that "there is something like an a
priori unity of a human life through its whole extent", but mindful
that, on his own account, self-interpretation is constitutive of the
self, he has to allow the hypothetical possibility that cultures could
Living in Hiding : The Multiple Self 26 1
exist in which people might legitimately be considered to have two
selves. (For example, a society in which it was universally acknowl­
edged that everyone took on a new identity at the age of forty. )
However, he concludes that "in the absence of such a cultural under­
standing, e.g. , in our world, the supposition that I could be two
temporally succeeding selves is either an overdramatized image, or
quite false".9 Taylor may be right to suppose that there are no cul­
tures in which the kind of thought-experiments Parfit performs on
the Lockean self actually take place. But although rejecting the punc­
tual self may make it easier to dismiss the claim that there are
temporally successive selves, invoking a conception of the self that
involves both self-interpretation and elements of intersubjective
experience opens the door to understandings of the self in which the
self is not synchronically unified. There is, in other words, a poten­
tial tension between treating the self holistically, in all its historical,
social and interpretative complexity, and treating the self as a single,
coherent unit. Not only does the former not necessarily imply the
latter, it may make it more, not less difficult to keep the self intact.
If, for any social or historical reason, personal identities are inter­
preted or constructed in terms that imply duality or multiplicity,
then even if there is continuity of self-consciousness, the self must be
understood in correspondingly multiple terms.
In this context, the progression from Aristotle to Hegel to Du
Bois outlined in the last chapter is not just a curious piece of intel­
lectual history, a genealogy of ideas about slavery and selfhood that
has no bearing on the history of actual selves or on the social reali­
ties of life during and after slavery. On the contrary, each account
can be taken as a description of the relationship between slavery and
the self at a particular point of time, and considered a source for
what that relation was actually like. And in so far as Aristotle merely
inscribed the social contradictions of slavery within the soul(s) of
 '
262 Seeing Things H idden
slaves, the Hegelian account of emancipation can be understood in
terms of social identity as well, and it was on this level that Du Bois
found Hegel's argument applicable to his own situation. What we
find in Du Bois is a tacit acceptance both of the idea that slavery
involves some kind of fracture or division of the self, and of the
Hegelian point that freedom does not reunite the self so much as
allow the fractured self to realise its implicit duality. Given that all of
these accounts rely on the same basic model of how that relation
operates, the fact that so many of those involved on both sides seem
to have found one or another version of that model applicable to
their own situation indicates that the model reflects the lived expe­
rience not just of slavery but (as Aristotle and Hegel implied) of
other forms of oppression as well.
If so, it suggests that the double and multiple selves of nine­
teenth- and twentieth-century literature and psychology may well
reflect the multiple social emancipations that have occurred in the
same period. 1 0 Du Bois's account of the double consciousness of the
African American who leads a "double life, with double thoughts,
double duties, and double social classes", and, in consequence, "ever
feels this twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two
thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one
dark body" is only one example. 1 1 Nevertheless, his description of
double consciousness is significant. As a self-interpretation that
locates the subjective experience of twoness within a specific social
and historical context, Du Bois's account of double consciousness
meets all the requirements of Taylor's self. It is, furthermore, not
merely a literary trope or piece of academic speculation, but,
according to his biographer, an expression of "the irreducible fact
that Du Bois's existence . . . was a psychic purgatory", 1 2 and an
expression in which many members of Du Bois's community were
able to recognise themselves. As the repeated literary deployment of
Living in Hiding : The Multiple Self 263
the concept testifies, the idea of double consciousness has seemed
like a useful self-interpretation of more than one generation of
African American. 1 3 What we have, in other words, is just that pos­
sibility which Taylor believes never to have been instantiated "in our
world", a community in which it proves impossible to locate per­
sonal identity within a single social space, a community in which
many individuals have found the moral imperative to consider their
lives as a whole to be incompatible with defining themselves as
single or united beings.
The point is not so much that Aristotle, Hegel and Du Bois col­
lectively articulated the essential truth of domination and
emancipation, as that the adoption of the same underlying model
will have made that model constitutive of the relationship between
slavery and selfhood, and that in so far as the model has provided the
pattern for other discourses of emancipation - whether of gender,
race, or class - the selves formed through these liberations are liable
to have the same characteristics. Notions of doubling and hybridity
are therefore central to debates in post-colonial and feminist theory.
In both cases it is assumed that, as Morwenna Griffiths puts it, "the
self is made up of a number of different, sometimes incompatible,
' selves' . . . [it) can participate in different, partially incompatible
communities . . . it speaks and is constrained by a number of differ­
ent, overlapping, languages and discourses". 1 4 The historical source
of this multiplication is held to be the result of the multiple patterns
of domination and emancipation that have characterised modernity.
According to Griffiths, "the fragmentation comes from the political
structures of oppression: fragments of self can be described in terms
of gender, race, class, sexuality, and so forth . . . . Almost every indi­
vidual falls on both sides of these divides." 1 5 And given the dynamics
of oppression and emancipation described in slavery, it is not difficult
to see how identities formed through these other types of oppression
-

264 Seeing Things Hidden Living in Hiding: The Multiple Self 265

might also experience the resulting doubling or multiplication of the both consider morally relevant (Macintyre actually cites being a

self. descendant or beneficiary of slaveholders as something constitutive

All of this would be irrelevant if what we understand as the self is of the identity of a modern American), 18 in so far as it involves

what Taylor calls the punctual self of continuous self-perception. But a duplication of the self it can hardly be accommodated within

if we share Taylor's and Macintyre's understanding of what selves are theories that rely upon the idea of having a single location in moral

within the framework of moral enquiry, then the model of space as the foundation of obj ective moral judgement. If, as

master-slave relations outlined in the previous chapter must be Macintyre claims, "What is better or worse for X depends upon the

taken as offering a valid insight into the self and its history. As Taylor character of that intelligible narrative which provides X's life with its

argues in his influential paper "Interpretation and the Sciences of unity", 19 then what can be said about those whose communal nar­

Man", "As men we are self-defining beings, and we are partly what ratives have given their lives disunity, and whose personal quests

we are in virtue of the self-definitions which we have accepted, seem to lead in opposite directions?

however we have come by them."16 So if people find it helpful to That Macintyre's and Taylor's understanding of the moral self

think of themselves or of others as double or multiple selves, then seems inapplicable to the duplicated selves formed through slavery

this interpretation cannot easily be dismissed as "an overdramatized is probably no accident, for the emphasis upon the unity of virtues

image". On the contrary, we may have to accept (as Taylor argues we and the corresponding unity of the life that embodies those virtues is

do of virtue terms) that "if we cannot deliberate effectively, or taken directly from Aristotle. Aristotle, of course, denied that slaves

understand and explain people's action illuminatingly, without such exercised virtue except in performing actions commanded by the

terms . . . then these are real features of our world". 1 7 master, and claimed that any virtue associated with those actions was

If so, the implications for Taylor's and Macintyre's projects are the master's rather than the slave 's. Macintyre is naturally affronted

considerable. Both philosophers offer a sharply drawn contrast by this, but nevertheless maintains that rejecting Aristotle's view on

between the self as a single character embedded within historical and this point "need not carry any large implications for our attitudes to

social narratives, and what Macintyre terms the emotivist or unen­ his overall theory". 20 However, things may not be so easy. Indeed,

cumbered self, and Taylor the neutral or punctual self, which has no the possibility that Aristotle may have had a more accurate view of

history, belongs to no community and imagines itself free to assume the limitations of his own theory is suggested by Taylor in

or reject any identity or moral orientation. Yet if we take seriously "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man". Not only are we partly

the picture of the double or multiple self formed through the constituted through self-definition, but

process of enslavement and emancipation, then this suggests there is

another alternative: a self that has no single identity or orientation What definitions we understand and what ones we don't

not because it lacks a place in history but rather because it cannot understand, is closely linked to the self-definitions which help

escape it. Such selves pose a problem for both Macintyre and Taylor. to constitute what we are . . . . [and] we have great difficulty

For although slavery offers just the sort of historical narrative which grasping definitions whose terms structure the world in ways
266 S e e ing Things H id d e n
which are utterly different from , incompatible with our
own . 2 1
If this is true, anyone who defines themselves as a united, single self
will find it extraordinarily difficult to understand the world from the
perspective of those who define themselves otherwise. And the
inevitable result of building a moral theory around an understanding
of the self that is less than universal will be that any selves that do not
fit will be excluded from consideration as moral subjects. The pos­
sible consequences may be illustrated by Nietzsche, a philosopher
with whose project Macintyre and Taylor have rather more in
common than they care to acknowledge.
Nietz sch e or D u B ois ?
Du Bois was not the only late-nineteenth-century writer to describe
the doubling that resulted from Hegel's master-slave dialectic, or to
see a parallel between this psychological multiplication and racial
mixture. Nietzsche made the same point in Beyond Good and Evil:
The German soul is above all manifold . . . . A German who
would make bold to say "two souls, alas, are dwelling in
my breast" would violate the truth rather grossly, or, more
precisely, would fall short of the truth by a good many souls.
As a people of the most monstrous mixture and medley
of races, perhaps even with a preponderance of the pre-Aryan
element . . . the Germans are more incomprehensible,
comprehensive, contradictory, unknown, incalculable,
surprising, even frightening than other people are to them­
selves. 22
1
Living in Hiding : The Multiple Self 267
That this multiplication of souls is in part the consequence of a
master-slave dialectic becomes evident later when Nietzsche not
only claims that "the contradictory nature at the bottom of the
German soul" was ''brought into a system by Hegel", but cites the
fusion of noble and slavish moralities in a single individual:
There are master morality and slave morality - I add immediately
that in all the higher and more mixed cultures there also
appear attempts at mediation between these two moralities,
and yet more often the interpenetration and mutual misun­
derstanding of both, and at times they occur directly alongside
each other - even in the same human being, within a single
soul. 23
The "intermarriage of master and slave" that has created democracy
is just another form of the racial mixture that has created the
German race, because, according to Nietzsche, those who exhibit
the oppressive and vindictive instincts of slave morality are "the
descendants of all European and non-European slavery, of all pre­
Aryan populations in particular". 24
At a descriptive level, Nietzsche's claim about the manifold
nature of the German soul echoes the model of slavery found in
Aristotle, Hegel and Du Bois. The noble, he claims in Beyond Good
and Evil, is a "whole human being";25 the slave is an "incomplete
human being", 26 and the emancipatory mingling of the two, which
he terms "the slave revolt in morals", results in both types being
found in one person who then becomes "a battleground for these
oppositions". 27
However, Nietzsche 's response to this situation is not that of Du
Bois, who envisages a merger or truce in which neither self is lost or
even adulterated, but in which the moral climate changes to
268 Seeing Things Hidden
� L i v i n g i n H i d i n g : T h e M u l ti p l e S e l f 269

accommodate this doubling and so "make it possible for a man to be

both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon
by his fellows". 28 On the contrary, Nietzsche wants to redefine
I human subjects not as isolated individuals but in their historical and
social particularity because "One cannot erase from the soul of a
human being what his ancestors most liked to do and did most con­

morality in order to avoid the possibility that Du Bois's hope might stantly."32 Finally he argues that moral reasoning itself, the

be realised. 29 "orientation to the good" as Taylor calls it, presupposes a particular

At a basic level, Nietzsche categorically rejects the recognition of type of human selfhood, namely that of nobles, the "whole human

self in other, that diffusion of human sympathy which, like Du Bois, beings" whose descriptions of the good are "a triumphant affirmation

he takes to be the cause of the multiplication of the self. " Why double of itself", 33 as opposed to slaves, who, being weak and incomplete,

your 'eao "' , he asks rhetorically in Daybreak: inevitably orientate their morality outwards, and say "no to an 'out­
side' , to an 'other ' , to a 'non-self"'. 34

To view and imbibe the experiences of others as if they were T he implication of this is, as Nietzsche puts it, that "Today . . .

ours - as is the demand of a philosophy of pity - this would when only the herd animal receives and dispenses honour in

destroy us . . . . Pity as a principle of action, with the demand : Europe . . . today the concept of greatness entails being noble"35 -

suffer from another's ill-for tune as he himself suffers, not, in other words, being incomplete like a slave, or even doubled

would . . . entail that the ego-standpoint, with its exaggeration and divided against oneself like those in whom master and slave

and excess, would also become the standpoint of the person have come to co-exist, but having an inclusive wholeness. Nietzsche

feeling pity: so that we would have to suffer from our own ego is not naive enough to suppose that any return to simple unity is pos­

and at the same time from the ego of the other. 30 sible, but his response to the manifold nature of the soul is
nevertheless to call for its realisation from w ithin wholeness, for

However, spurning the philosophy of pity which fuelled the slave what he terms " wholeness in manifoldness". T his move is precisely

revolt in morals is not enough. Nietzsche does not want merely to the opposite of that envisaged by Du Bois. Nietzsche is not contem­

repudiate an aspect of conventional morality, he seeks to reformu­ plating the acceptance of divided selves nor even the synthesis of

late the assumptions on which moral judgements are founded in many in one. For him, multiplicity is essentially negative. As he

such a way that the very possibility of such a doubling is excluded a noted in 1 888:
priori.
T he moves through which he tries to accomplish this will be T he anatagonism o f the passions; two, three, a multiplicity of

familiar to any reader of Macintyre or Taylor. He first shifts the souls in one breast: very unhealthy, inner ruin, disintegration,

focus of moral enquiry from actions to human subjects because "It is betraying and increasing inner conflict and anarchism - unless

obvious that moral designations were everywhere first applied to one passion at last becomes master. 36

human beinas and only later, derivatively, to actions."31 He then moves

from ontology to sociology, by arguing that we have to think of the W hat Nietzsche admires is universality, the expansion of one into
270 Seeing Things Hidden
many achieved by Goethe, who "aspired to . . . totality . . . [and] dis­
ciplined himself to a whole". Such a person would then have
"universality in understanding and affirmation", and become "a man
to whom nothing is forbidden, except it be weakness". 37
The fact that Macintyre and Taylor are treading in Nietzsche's
footprints is hardly surprising given that both paths lead to the same
destination. Aristotle is the source of Nietzsche 's "great-souled
man", who, although "capable of being as manifold as whole" is a
being in whom all virtues are one, 38 and Aristotle too provides the
model for the unitary moral subject of Macintyre and, at one
remove, of Taylor. In this respect, Macintyre's famous question
"Nietzsche or Aristotle?" could not be more misleading. Nietzschean
man may not appear within Taylor's and Macintyre's work in all his
sociopathic glory, but it is nevertheless the unified moral self of
the master, and not the doubled, divided or multiplied self of the
(former) slave, that is the focus and bearer of moral discourse.
The suspicion that the ethics of the unified moral subject is simply
another name for the morality of the masters is hardly dispelled
when, at the very end of A.fter Virtue, Macintyre tries to avoid this
implication and distance himself from Nietzsche by pointing out
that
. . . if the conception of a good has to be expounded in terms
of . . . the narrative unity of a human life and of a moral tra­
dition, then goods, and with them the only grounds for the
authority of laws and virtues, can only be discovered by enter­
ing into those relationships which constitute communities
whose central vision is a shared vision of and understanding of
goods. 39
The problem is, Nietzsche got there before him. He too noted that
Living in H iding : The Multiple Self 271
"as a good man, one belongs to the 'good ' , a community that has a
communal feeling". 4D But he had no hesitation in specifying the type
of community in which such a shared vision of the good would be
found :
The profound reverence for age and tradition - all law rests on
this double reverence - the faith and prejudice in favour of
ancestors and disfavour of those yet to come are typical of the
morality of the powerfulY
T h e P olitics of R ec ognition
The affirmation of the single, unified self against the multiplication
arising from the emancipations of modernity can have, as it does in
Nietzsche, the openly reactionary purpose of negating their effect
and cancelling the recognition of selves emerging from multiple
forms of enslavement. However, Nietzsche was prescient in per­
ceiving the tension between emancipation and the unity of the self,
and the issue has only recently been readdressed, and then only
indirectly, in what has become known as the politics of recognition.
The underlying problem has been articulated by Charles Lemert
in terms of the non-equivalence of self and identity. Lemert's empir­
ical research suggested that there are, on the one hand, those, often
"white, male, and of apparently less complicated blood histories
and superficially more familiar sexual orientations", who have a
strong sense of self as something universally human, and so with
little differentiated identity, while, on the other, there are "individ-
uals whose ancestors were not European . . . [who] are less inclined
to present themselves as sexually straight. . . . [and] tend to have had
life experiences that are dark, in the several senses of the word -
272 S e e i ng Things H i d d e n
including the racial". 42 Amongst this group, there is what Lemert
terms a weaker sense of self, but a far more nuanced sense of social
or communal identity, frequently articulated in terms of a complex
of alternative identities between which the individual locates herself.
Taylor, identified by Lemert as a representative of the first group,
has not been indifferent to the tension between the single, unspeci­
fied self of the liberal humanist tradition and the specific identities of
those that tradition has sought to recognise, and in consequence
Taylor has emerged as a sympathetic exponent of multiculturalism.
In the form in which it has been articulated by Taylor and others, the
debate hinges on the tension between individual and communal
recognition, between, as Amy Gutmann puts it:
( 1 ) respect for the unique identities of each individual, regard­
less of gender, race, or ethnicity, and (2) respect for those
activities, practices, and ways of viewing the world that are
particularly valued by, or associated with, members of disad­
vantaged groups, including women, Asian-Americans,
African-Americans, Native Americans , and a multitude of
other groups in the United States. 43
For Taylor, the individual! communal polarity can be translated into
one of sameness and difference. As individual human beings (what
Lemert calls selves) we are all entitled to "an identical basket of
rights and immunities", but as members of particular communities
(i.e. as bearers of particular identities) , what we wish to have
acknowledged is our "distinctness from everyone else". 44 The recog­
nition of sameness and the recognition of difference are taken to
reflect two distinct phases of political history. The first involved a
universalisation of recognition in which others were recognised
equals; the second built on the first but incorporated a more holistic
r
. Living in Hiding : The Multiple Self 273
understanding of personal identity, and so emphasised that for all to
be recognised as equal, all communal identities must be recognised
as equal as well. Although the underlying demand for equality of
recognition is the same in both cases, there is an unavoidable tension
between the two, for how can difference be recognised without
compromising the recognition of sameness, and vice versa?
Responses to this question can usually be located somewhere on
a continuum between a homogenising recognition of sameness and
a fragmenting recognition of difference, between a totalitarian
equalisation on the one hand and a neo-tribal separatism on the
other. Most seek to accommodate the two opposing demands
through some combination of minority representation and/ or lim­
ited political autonomy with measures for the preservation of the
distinct cultural identity that sustains the minority community in
question. In effect, this means that the recognition of difference is
brought about through the division and compartmentalisation of
social space. The extent to which such measures satisfy the demand
for the recognition of difference is arguable, for within a globalised
economy it is very difficult to isolate and insulate social spaces,
unless they have already been granted a certain autonomy by virtue
of their irrelevance to the market.
However, the success or failure of multicultural politics is not the
primary issue here, for the generation of the multiple self, and the
differing responses to that process exemplified by the work of Du
Bois and Nietzsche, allows us to see the politics of recognition in a
different context. Within multiculturalism the perceived problem
with the recognition of sameness is that it fails to recognise the dis­
tinct identities of those recognised; that, for example, in recognising
that blacks should be treated on equal terms with whites, American
as
society simultaneously disregarded those distinctive features of black
experience that constituted black identity, and so did not recognise
274 Seeing Things Hidden
blacks as such as being the equals of whites but merely bestowed
upon them an honorific white identity from which they could bene­
fit only at the price of accommodating themselves to white society
and shedding their black identity. In contrast, the account of eman­
cipation given in the last chapter suggests that in so far as the
sameness of subordinated identities is actually acknowledged, it
facilitates the development of those identities. In other words, the
recognition of sameness and the recognition of difference are not
two distinct forms of recognition but one. Seen in the light of Du
Bois's original demand for the recognition of black Americans '
double identity, current tensions can therefore be viewed as being
between multiple selves of emancipation and the single, unified self
of the master morality, rather than between individual sameness
and cultural difference. For if acknowledgement necessarily multi­
plies the self, then a society that insists upon the unity of the self is
effectively withholding rather than giving recognition.
In this context, multicultural politics appears not as a positive
response to Du Bois's plea for the acceptance of double identities so
much as an attempt to accommodate its rejection, for the terms in
which the debate has been conducted are those of the masters. In the
politics of recognition, the unity of the self is preserved, and differ­
ence is accommodated through single selves inhabiting multiple
spaces rather than multiple selves inhabiting a single social space. But
the two are in no sense equivalent, for unless multicultural politics
also allows for a multiplication of the self, it is hard to see how it
constitutes a giving rather than a denial of recognition.
In order to see the limitations of multiculturalism without any
corresponding multiplication of the self, it is worth considering the
proposals made by Will Kymlicka in Multicultural Citizenship.
Citizenship is not, of course, co-extensive with the socially consti­
tuted self, but it nevertheless represents a relatively fixed and
Living in H i ding : The Multiple Self 275
encompassing form of public identity rather than merely a social
role, and in so far as the self has a legally recognised form it is as the
citizen. Kymlicka advocates what he terms "differentiated citizen­
ship", in which "the members of certain groups are incorporated
into the political community, not only as individuals , but also
through the group, and their rights depend, in part, on their group
membership". 45 However, unless such differentiated citizenship is
also multiple in the sense that a person has both an individual citi­
zenship and a group-differentiated citizenship, then individuals will
not so much benefit from it as be restricted by it. To take an obvious
example, a law that allowed Sikhs to wear turbans rather than hel­
mets when riding motorcycles would, unless it also permitted Sikhs
to wear helmets, effectively force Sikhs to endanger their safety. But
a law that allowed Sikhs the opportunity to choose whether they
wished to be treated as Sikhs, and so be exempted from the usual
requirements of the law, or to be treated in the same way as non­
Sikhs , would effectively acknowledge a dual identity as Sikh or
non-Sikh. In contrast, non-Sikhs cannot exempt themselves from the
law simply by claiming to be Sikhs; their identity remains singular.
Similarly, non-indigenous persons living on tribal lands in Canada
are not allowed to benefit from the special privileges afforded the
aboriginal inhabitants, but the aboriginal people are quite free to
benefit from the advantages of moving to Toronto. What Kymlicka
terms group-differentiated citizenship is not so much a differentia­
tion of citizenship as the creation of additional forms of citizenship
which some people may enjoy alongside, or, if they so desire, instead
of, the citizenship held by everyone else.
But, it may be argued, since identities are formed within cul­
tures, does not the preservation and recognition of distinct cultures
function as a means of recognising the individuals within that cul­
ture? Not exactly, for the replication of different identities within
I
I
,IJ
276 Seeing Things Hidden
multiple cultures is not the same as the recognition of multiple
identities within a single culture. Some might argue that the per­
petuation of cultural diversity and the replication of different
identities is an intrinsic social good, but that is another question. The
primary issue arising from the emancipations of modernity is how to
accommodate multiple identities, not how to reproduce them. And
although Kymlicka's approach to multicultural politics is conceived
within a liberal framework that does not, unlike Taylor's communi­
tarian conception of the self, 46 disallow multiplication, he does not
address the question of multiplicity. Nevertheless, unless multicul­
tural citizenship is also a form of multiple citizenship, and thus an
implicit recognition of a multiplication of the self, the result is a sort
of apartheid in which members of each community inhabit sealed
spaces within which their opportunities are restricted. The equation
of multicultural politics with apartheid has often been made by its
opponents, and the accusation is not wholly misplaced. However, in
order to see the relevance of the comparison it is necessary to spell
out just what was wrong with apartheid in the first place. That
something was very wrong with apartheid is something everyone
outside of Afrikaner South Africa appears to have accepted, but
there is no substantial body of literature within political philosophy
that makes the case against it from first principles. There is, I would
hazard, a reason for this, namely that it is very difficult to make a
case against apartheid without simultaneously arguing against the
nation state or in favour of multiple citizenship.
When apartheid was first established it was announced as an
attempt to approximate to the ideal of separate nation states. As Dr
Verwoerd said in 1 948 :
If we had had here a white South Africa in the sense in which
you have a white England and a white Holland and a white
Living in Hiding: The Multiple Self 277
France, and if there had been a Native state somewhere for the
Natives . . . . it would have been an ideal state of affairs.47
Apartheid, by classifying and distributing individuals amongst dis­
tinct social and geographical spaces, tried to replicate this division
into nations, so that each could enjoy the opportunity for separate
development. Verwoerd expressed the hope that:
As the nations of the world each in its own territory accom­
plishes its own national development, so also the opportunity
will be given here to the various Native groups each to accom­
plish its own development each in its own territory.48
It is hard to see how any supporter of the nation state, or even of the
rights of national minorities within the state, could quarrel with
this political ambition. It is true that apartheid was developed to pro­
tect the interests of a particular ethnic group at the expense of
others, but many nation states were formed for the same reason.
And although some might protest that racial rather than national or
cultural identity should not be the basis for the division of social
space, it is hard to see why one criterion should be considered
preferable to another. Not only are all unchosen and difficult or
impossible to change, but racial identity is often the basis of cultural
and (as is legally the case in Germany and Israel) national identity.
The essential objection to apartheid had to be that the separation
of races into quasi-national groups created a grossly inequitable divi­
sion of social and economic resources, and that a system of
classification which provided only for singular racial identities and
limited scope to reclassification meant that access to those resources
was similarly inequitable. More or less everyone seems to have found
this objection to apartheid to be compelling, but it would seem to
:I
278 S e e ing Things H i d d e n
apply, a fortiori, to the division of the world into separate nation
states with strict controls on the flow of people between them .
What is the difference between the denial of well-paid employment
to someone in the old South Africa because they were black, and the
denial of well-paid employment to someone in the EU or USA
because they happen to be an African or Mexican national?
The question has been asked before, 49 but not adequately
answered. Even today, the increasing restriction on movement
between national or federated states is not viewed as a major moral
or political issue, despite the widening gap between the life-chances
of those living in the poorest and the richest countries. 50 Apartheid,
which divided social space to prevent individuals from some racial
groups from sharing the social and economic benefits enjoyed by
another, was universally held to be an obvious social injustice.
However, it is difficult to see how a world of impermeable nation
states is fundamentally different, save that national rather than racial
identity is used as the basis for the segregationY The essential fea­
ture shared by the world of nation states, a multicultural state and the
apartheid regime in South Africa is that the individuals are classified
and distributed amongst discrete social spaces whose boundaries are
then guarded against border crossings. But whereas apartheid was
universally abhorred , nation states are generally accepted, and mul­
ticultural societies are advocated by political reformers. The
difference between these three is the degree to which the identities
assigned to individuals are singular and unchangeable. Within
apartheid, the singularity of identity was crucial; indeed, racial clas­
sification was introduced for the specific purpose of preventing
individuals passing themselves off as members of more than one race
and so benefiting from more than a single set of group-specific priv­
ileges, and although reclassification was possible it was never granted
in order to benefit the needy. Amongst nation states, things are
Living in Hiding: The Multiple Self 279
slightly better: emigration is considered a human right (although
there is no corresponding duty to accept immigrants) , refugee status
is recognised (although increasingly difficult to obtain) , and dual or
multiple citizenship is theoretically possible. In a multicultural state,
in contrast, it is assumed (although rarely stated) that additional
forms of citizenship will be created precisely in order to benefit
those whom a single form failed adequately to recognise. The dif­
ference between multicultural citizenship and apartheid lies chiefly
in the exclusivity of the relationship between the individual and her
community. No one would have had a problem with apartheid if
individuals were assumed to have multiple racial identities and were
able to reclassify themselves at will.
What this illustrates is the impossibility of divorcing recognition
from the relationship between the people giving and receiving
recognition. Someone can hardly be said to be given recognition if
that recognition is confmed to a social space other than that inhab­
ited by the person supposedly giving it. If someone is recognised as
inhabiting a separate social space, but treated as alien within the
social space inhabited by the recogniser, then this hardly qualifies as
de-alienation. Being recognised as the inhabitant of an alien space is
no recognition at all.
L iv ing in Hiding
Just as recognition cannot take place outside of the master's space,
so, it may be argued, recognition cannot take place independently of
the master's identity. As Hegel and Cavell both emphasise, recog­
nising the identity of others also requires the acknowledgement of
subordinated aspects of one's own identity, the other in the self. If
so, it suggests that people's identities are formed on both sides of the
2 80 Seeing Things H i d d e n
structures of oppression not just because the identity of the master
T Living in H i ding : The Multiple Self
has imposed itself upon the slave but also because, when the slave is
acknowledged by the master, the master accepts the slave's identity
to be something other than alien, to be something within himself.
The corollary of the capacity "to descry in others that transfigured
spark of divinity which we call Myself" is, of course, to find within
the self those sparks of divinity which we call others. Nietzsche was
obviously determined to maintain a single unified identity while, all
around him, new identities were recognised and coming into hiding.
But, as he conceded, doing so required an internal struggle, a literal
self-overcoming, in which one self mastered the others and the
master "disciplined himself to a whole". For others, however, the
emancipations of the nineteenth century provided an opportunity to
liberate repressed selves through the acknowledgement of others. It
is this process, the other side of the one described by Du Bois, that
finds expression in the poetry of Walt Whitman, who describes his
ability to see himself not just in the world of the masters, lending a
hand at the slave market,
A man's body at auction,
(For bifore the war I iften go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business. 5 2
but also in the world of the slave, a runaway fleeing from his would­
be captors:
I am the hounded slave. . . . I wince at the bite if dogs,
Hell and despair are upon me . . . . crack and again crack the marks­
men. 53
That this capacity to see himself on both sides of systems of
oppression is the direct result of the acknowledgement of those
281
who are subordinated becomes clear when Whitman turns to the
position of another subordinated group, women:
Souls if men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard,
untouchable and untouching,
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you
are alive or no,
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.
Grown, half-grown and babe, if this country and every country,
indoors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see,
And all else behind or through them.
The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband,
The daughter, and she is just as good as the son,
The mother, and she is every bit as much as thefather. 54
By publicly owning who others are, by recognising the full human­
ity of souls that others fail to recognise or merely quibble over,
Whitman not only brings subordinated identities into parity with
dominant identities, he also creates the possibility of acknowledging
those same identities within himself:
I am if old andyoung, if thefoolish as much as the wise,
Regardless if others, ever regarciful if others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man. 5 5
By acknowledging the mother as much as the father, the babe as well
as the adult, Whitman allows these identities to resonate within
himself. The "Song of Myself" is in large part a lyrical evocation of
282 Seeing Things Hidden
the nineteenth-century spread of human sympathy to slaves and to
women extrapolated by Whitman into a totalising acknowledge­
ment of all subordinated identities which allows the silenced and
oppressed to speak through the poet:
Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices 1 the interminable generations 1slaves,
Voices 1prostitutes and 1 diformed persons,
Voices 1 the diseased and despairing, and 1 thieves and dwaifs. 5 6
The result is of course profoundly contradictory, but this is some­
thing Whitman accepts as the inevitable consequence of the diffusion
of acknowledgement and the resulting multiplication and diversifi­
cation within:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then . . . I contradict myself;
. accommodated within our conceptual and legal systems.
I am large. . . . I contain multitudes. 57
The contradictory multiplication of the self that Whitman describes
inevitably means that selves become elusive, that each recognition is
also a misrecognition as the revelation of one self simultaneously dis­
guises another. For Whitman, this "fugitive self" may partly have
been a poetic persona, but it is nevertheless just such self-interpre­
tations that have to be accommodated within any holistic
understanding of the self. But what would a society composed of
such multiplied selves actually be like?
Suppose that the experiences of Du Bois and Whitman were
accepted as the norm and we took for granted that people had
many selves as others recognised them to have, or as they recognised
in others. Pushed to the limit this would mean that everyone had
Living in Hiding : The Multiple Self 283
multiple identities. We would acknowledge the master in the slave
and the slave in the master, the coloniser in the colonised and the
colonised in the coloniser, the white in the black and the black in the
white, the man in the woman and the woman in the man, the human
in the ape and the ape in the human. 58 The result would be extraor­
dinarily complex and confusing, just like modern society, only more
so. Creating practices and institutions to accommodate this degree
of social complexity would be tricky but not impossible. There was
a time when social roles were tied to particular identities, but in
modernity roles and identities were uncoupled so that someone
with a single identity could play multiple social roles; there seems no
intrinsic reason why social identities should not be similarly
uncoupled from somatic continuity. We already have little difficulty
dealing with holders of dual or even multiple nationality, so there
seems no intrinsic reason why individuals of dual or multiple races,
genders, sexualities, ages or species should not also be satisfactorily
Consider, for example, the situation of someone with dual
nationality or double cultural identity within a multicultural society.
A dual national is usually free to benefit from whichever nationality
she chooses to adopt and is treated accordingly without thereby
losing the right to assume the other nationality and change her
status; similarly, someone of dual culture may choose to benefit
from whatever positive discrimination there is in favour of one cul­
tural identity without forfeiting the right to assume the other on a
different occasion. It is currently harder to imagine how persons of
plural genders, species or ages might be treated, but that is only
because the relevant social and legal categories do not exist; the
as principle that everyone is free to benefit from whatever identities
they possess on the basis of choosing whichever identity is most to
their advantage is already established and could be extended further.
 Living in Hiding : The Multiple Self 285
284 Seeing Things Hidden

because it was on this basis that they discouraged the killing of ani­
The corollary of the principle that people should be able to bene­
mals and the eating of meat. The argument should be of interest to
fit from whichever identity is most advantageous to them is that
anyone concerned with the ethics of the multiple self, for the con­
other people should be willing to treat them accordingly. This is
tinuity of identity and the accumulation of memories from one
more difficult than it sounds, because most social and ethical deci­
incarnation to the next had the effect of multiplying the identities
sions are taken without the individuals affected being able to choose
within a single body. And it was the possibility of harming an iden­
in advance which identity they will have, or knowing which identity
tity formed in a previous incarnation, rather than the possibility of
will be most advantageous. How then can a society accommodate
injuring an immortal soul, that was the focus of the Pythagoreans'
the bearers of multiple identities without imposing crippling disad­
moral concern. In particular, they were troubled by the possibility
vantages on some identities and not on others? In order to answer
that they might kill and eat a creature whose body had taken in the
this, it is worth considering a couple of theories in which similar
soul of a relative or friend. According to Ovid, Pythagoras taught
questions have been posed.
that: "We should permit bodies which may possibly have sheltered
Something like this situation has been envisaged on at least two
the souls of our parents or brothers or those joined to us by some
occasions in the history of moral philosophy. The Pythagorean tra­
other bond, or of men at least, to be uninjured and respected."61
dition, of which Ovid gives a good account in the Metamorphoses,
Although some commentators consider vegetarianism to be the
provides one example. According to this doctrine,
"self-evident corollary" of the Pythagorean belief in the transmigra­
tion of souls, 62 the inference is far from obvious. A soul may have
The spirit wanders, comes now here, now there, and occupies
been through innumerable incarnations, accumulating all sorts of
whatever frame it pleases. From beasts it passes into human
memories and residual identities along the way. Having been human
bodies, and from our bodies into beasts, but never perishes.
will account for just one, or at most some, of these incarnations, and
And as the pliant wax is stamped with new designs, does not
yet it is on account of what may be only a fraction of the accumu­
remain as it was before nor preserve the same form, but is still
lated identities of the soul that a Pythagorean feels compelled to
the selfsame wax, so do I teach that the soul is ever the same,
show respect. Furthermore, there is no way of knowing which
though it passes into everchanging bodies. 59
bodies house which souls. Pythagoras was reputed to have recog­
nised the voice of a deceased friend in the yelps of a maltreated
Someone who believed this to be true might therefore claim to have
dog, but this was an exception to the norm. Some souls might never
passed through a remarkable series of identities. Thus Empedocles
have been incarnated as a human, others might only have been
apparently claimed to have been "a boy, and a girl, and a bush, and
embodied in the form of one's enemies. Nevertheless, the possibil­
a fish that jumps from the sea as it swims". 60
ity that a soul might previously have been human is considered
These are not, of course, simultaneous multiple identities but the
enough to refrain from killing and eating something that is currently
successive embodiments of a single soul. Nevertheless, the
embodied in very different form, and the still more remote
Pythagoreans clearly thought the continuities to be important

L.l.
 •
286 Seeing Things Hidden
possibility that the soul might have been a friend or relative is
enough to inspire horror at the betrayal of trust involved . In other
words, the mere possibility that one out of the soul's many accu­
mulated identities is that of a human friend is enough for a creature
to be accorded the respect and consideration due to that identity.
Although less than self-evident, the Pythagorean argument is in
accord with our customary intuitions. Random gunfire in urban
areas is strongly discouraged on the off-chance that a stray bullet
might kill someone, even though the chances of anyone (let alone
one of our friends) being hit is probably very remote. But what lies
behind this intuition, and how might it be justified? One answer is
provided by Rawls. In his account of the original position Rawls
envisages a situation in which people choose the principles of justice
from behind a veil of ignorance, so that no one knows her own or
other people's identities within the society governed by the chosen
principles. In consequence,
no one knows his place in society, his class position or social
status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of
natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and
the like. Nor, again, does anyone know his conception of the
good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the
special features of his psychology such as his aversion to risk or
liability to optimism or pessimism. 63
It is easy to see how Rawls's scenario might be used to justify the
Pythagorean conclusion, for the inhabitants of the original position
are like disembodied souls awaiting reincarnation without knowing
their future place in society or even the type of society in which they
will find themselves. If we suppose that those in this position are
unaware not only of their social identity but of their species identity
Living i n H i di n g : The M u l t i p l e S elf 287
as well, then it is easy to see that the only rational choice would be
to live within a herbivorous ecology, for in this scenario vegetarian­
ism would seem to be implied by Rawls's first principle of justice.
Whatever else it includes, having an equal right to the most exten­
sive basic liberty compatible with that of others certainly includes
the right not to be killed and eaten.
What the Pythagorean and the Rawlsian scenarios have in
common is that identities are hidden. For the Pythagoreans, the
principle of vegetarianism is derived from the problem of moral
choice under uncertainty about who anyone else is. For Rawls, the
principles of justice are derived from uncertainty about who you, as
a self-interested individual, are going to be. These are two sides of
the same coin: how to treat others when identities are hidden; how
you would like to be treated when your identity is hidden from
you. The Pythagorean answer is to treat unidentified others as
though they were those closest to you, rather than just hoping that
they are not those closest to you; the Rawlsian answer is to treat each
identity as though you yourself occupied it, rather than just hoping
that you will not have to occupy an avoidably disadvantaged position
in society. The results are compatible, for in both cases the conclu­
sion is that all hidden identities should be accorded the maximum
respect, because the possible consequences of doing so (eating your
relatives, being eaten yourself) are simply too horrendous to allow,
even if their probability is unknown.
Rawls intended the original position to be considered "a purely
hypothetical situation". 64 But any successful thought experiment
enjoys a currency precisely because its premisses appear relevant to
the social circumstances of the people who use it. Rawls's original
position would exercise little imaginative appeal in a society in
which personal identities are determined by fixed social positions.
What would be the point of imagining what it would be like not to
288 Seeing Things Hidden
know your place in society unless it is possible to conceive, as a prac­
tical rather than logical possibility, that your position might be other
than it is? The imaginative appeal of the original position, and the
moral relevance of its conception of justice chosen under uncer­
tainty, rests heavily upon the fluidity, anonymity and social mobility
of modern society. It is the real probability that you might find
yourself dealing with people who do not know who you are, that
your personal circumstances might change, that your children's sit­
uation might be radically different from your own, that makes the
hypothetical possibility of choosing the principles of justice from
behind a veil of ignorance so intriguing. The original position, it
might be argued , simply takes the characteristic features of moder­
nity and extrapolates them.
But how does the limit condition of modernity, in which the
contradictory multiple selves of emancipation have come fully into
hiding, differ from Rawls's original position? Metaphorically, the
veil is relocated . Rawls conceives of the veil of ignorance falling
around the subject, like the blindfold around an allegorical figure of
justice, rather than enshrouding the objects of their deliberations.
But the relation between subject and object is essentially the same;
knowledge of both self and others is always partial, so radically
incomplete as to be misleading. We do not really know who we are
or who we are dealing with, not because we are confused, but
because we cannot know.
The most significant difference is that whereas Rawls conceives
the veil of ignorance as something that we can momentarily step
behind in order to establish the principles of justice, and then step
out from in order to enact them, living in hiding involves a contin­
uous state of frustrated knowledge. It involves not only choosing
principles under uncertainty but trying to follow those principles
under the same uncertainty. This has little effect when it comes to
Living i n H iding : The M u l ti p l e Self 289
the first principle, for if everyone without exception has equal rights
to the same basic liberties there is no problem with acting upon that
principle without being aware of who one is dealing with - everyone
has to be treated in the same way anyway. But the second principle,
which arranges inequalities so that they exist only where they are of
the greatest benefit to the least advantaged, becomes more difficult
to operate. Behind the veil of ignorance no one knows who is going
to occupy what social position or who is going to be more or
less advantaged as a result, but living in hiding has the effect of
uncoupling the assignment of benefits from the assignment of social
positions. For example, suppose that it has been determined that the
distribution 6 / 3 / 2 satisfies Rawls's second, maximin, principle in
that all other possibilities would result in the smallest figure being
less than 2, and that a society attempts to assign goods accordingly.
Who is to get what? Since it is unclear who anyone is, the only
possible assignment will be a random one. But if assignment
is random, then what inequalities could there be that would
maximise the benefits to the least advantaged? With random
assignment, inequalities cannot act as incentives to particular forms
ofbehaviour (such as entrepreneurial investment or career ambition)
that might maximise the benefits to the least advantaged.
In order to see what distribution might be compatible with the
randomised assignment of a maximin strategy, it is worth consider­
ing how a maximin lottery might work. (In practice, not very well,
since lotteries usually work on something close to a maximax prin­
ciple, but that is not the point.) The maximum minimum payout
would be that which each person had paid for a ticket. No inequal­
ities in the distribution of lottery money (which might increase the
number of tickets bought) would increase that maximin. It would
appear to be in everyone's interests to increase the jackpot by invest­
ing in it, but, so long as assignment was random and distribution
 I ll

290 S e ei n g Things H id d e n

maximin, no one could be offered any special incentive for doing so.
Equal distribution appears to be the only maximin strategy compat­
ible with random assignment.
But with random assignment perhaps no one would choose a
maximin distribution anyway. Maybe not, but random assignment
tends to be associated with equal, random or maximax distribu­ E p il o g u e
tions, and no one with the slightest aversion to risk (or, as Rawls
argues, with an awareness that they might be risk-averse) would
rationally choose a maximax or a random distribution for the
random assignment of all social goods (except perhaps under triage) .
With random assignment, there i s no incentive to depart from
simple equality except at a point where resources are so limited that
any further increase in shares distributed equally would yield bene­
fits to those assigned them so negligible, or superfluous to their
needs, that it would be rational to prefer taking the chance of receiv­ It is a strange apocalypse this, although only in its familiarity, for
ing no further benefit in order to create the possibility of receiving what could be stranger than apocalyptic? Heralded by the coming
benefits that would be sufficiently large to be meaningful. into hiding of those twinned Mischwesen Whitman and Du Bois, fore­
However, this is not the place to try to work out what a rational told by Lukacs and described in Rawls's unwitting prophecy, the
distribution of goods under random assignment would be; the point apocalyptic features of late modernity are those we take for
is rather that this additional uncertainty makes it more difficult to granted - the dissolution of the rigid taboos that used to keep people
justifY non-egalitarian distributions from within the Rawlsian frame­ apart, the tacit acceptance that the expulsion or persecution of
work. Just as a masked ball is liable to distribute flirtation more anomalous individuals or minorities is not, or at least should not be,
evenly, so the coming into hiding of multiple selves is liable to put an the best way to regulate the body politic, and the consequent pro­
egalitarian pressure on the distribution of social goods. So although liferation of persons who defy the boundaries that taboo once
the original position was conceived only as a hypothetical situation regulated, and whose plural identities embody contradictions that
in which the choices made would be fair, if society has been devel­ would once have been eradicated . As in apocalyptic, taboo has
oping so that the key feature of the original position is progressively ended, sacrifice has ceased and the scapegoats have returned.
realised, then the choices made within such a society should become Small wonder, therefore, that the social developments of late
progressively fairer as well. If so, Rawls's thought-experiment may modernity have been accompanied by a barrage of excited com­
be part sociological description and part utopian prophecy. mentary from the apocalyptically minded of all religions. The social
character of late modernity actually is apocalyptic; every breakdown

292 Seeing Things Hidden
of sacrifice, every infringement of taboo, brings the polluting undif­
ferentiation that is the reversal of the mechanisms that maintain
order in traditional societies. In apocalyptic, traditional religions
already have a vision of the chaos of modernity; it takes little imag­
ination to recognise it once it happens. Here, perhaps, is the key to
late modernity's peculiar symbiosis with apocalyptic religion; by
continually furnishing the evidence to confirm apocalyptic expecta­
tions, modernity may also serve to re-legitimate the values that it
dissolves, and so reinforce modernity's specifically apocalyptic
appearance.
However, this is not, as Bauman claims, a cycle internal to
modernity. Bivalence and binary classification are not obsessions
peculiar to modernity; order and chaos are not "modern twins"
born together in the seventeenth century, 1 but universal concerns
that appear to be regulated through binary oppositions in all soci­
eties. The account of modernity that Bauman offers is essentially that
of a forward-looking traditionalist whose tradition is modernity and
for whom postmodernity is modernity's apocalypse. Bauman himself
may welcome the idea that postmodernity is an "emancipation from
the characteristically modern urge to overcome ambivalence", 2 but
that has also been the attitude of generations of modernisers in tra­
ditional societies who saw modernity itself as the emancipation from
the traditional order of taboo and sacrifice.
From the perspective of a traditionalist, the apocalypse of
modernity (and for Bauman the apocalypse of postmodernity) is
essentially a negation, a reversal ofjust those social dynamics that have
previously maintained order. As such it is merely a chaos, a riot of
undifferentiation with no character or shape beyond its lack of one.
But we do not need to see it that way. By disentangling the epistemic
from the ontic features of the hidden, it is possible to argue that the
characteristic ambivalence and undecidability of social meanings is
I '!
Epilogue 293
just the necessary hiddenness of true contradiction. This allows us to
understand the epistemic elusiveness of late modernity as something
other than negation and, because necessary hiddenness may be the
coming into hiding of unknowable contradiction, to see the underly­
ing dynamic not as a retreat from knowability but an advance towards
it in which previously impossible social contradictions are realised.
Developing a more nuanced understanding of hiddenness also
allows us to consider the possibility that our very capacity to see the
world as hidden may be a function of the process of coming into
hiding. The perspectivalism of early modernity may, for a time,
have allowed us to suppose that the contradictions generated by
modernity were just the effect of looking at the world from differ­
ing points of view. But, with souls dawning around us and within us,
it has become more difficult to keep the world at a sufficient distance
to maintain that the things we are seeing are anything other than
aspects of the world itself. It is easy to suppose that the contradictory
appearance of alien beings is relational (if we want to generate con­
tradictory interpretations of ourselves , we try to imagine how we
might look from a Martian perspective); it is more difficult to claim
that the contradictions we sense in our friends or ourselves are any­
thing other than inherent.
Seeing a world of hidden contradictions is at odds both with the
bivalence of traditional societies and with the perspectivalism of
early modernity. But although it may have been the coming into
hiding of social contradictions that brought about the shift to an
aspectival way of seeing, there is no necessary connection between
perspectivalism and bivalence: bivalence need not be perspectival,
and perspectivalism can, to some extent, resist contradiction by
interpreting it as a symptom of its own relativism. All the same, it
may not be pure coincidence that the duck-rabbit, the epistemo­
logical totem of late modernity, embodies the contradictory mixing
294 Seeing Things Hidden

of kinds that characterises the scapegoats ofbivalent societies and the

Mischwesen of apocalypse: true contradictions are best seen (and not
seen) aspectivally.
One consequence of this account is that it suggests that the apoc­
alyptic hiddenness of contemporary society is not an unwanted
by-product of the Enlightenment project but a testimony to its suc­ Notes
cess. If the acknowledgement of others and the de-alienation of the
world effects a coming into hiding of excluded contradiction, then
the increasing hiddenness of the world comes from the spread of
recognition and the lighting up of the necessarily hidden - in which
case this apocalypse has to be seen not as a sudden implosion of the
world, but rather, as Joachim and Hegel envisaged, a gradual
progress towards contradiction brought about by the subtle but irre­ C h ap t e r 1 H i dd e nn e s s
versible dawning of new aspects on the aspect-blind. Such a progress
has unmistakable affinities with what is usually thought of as utopia 1 . Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qyeene, I, Proem, 1 .
rather than apocalypse. But while it shares the gradualism and egali­ 2 . Ibid . , I, Proem, 2 .
tarianism of utopia, our apocalypse is also characterised by just that 3 . Ibid. , I.i.4.
epistemic undecidability which utopian thinkers have so often sought 4. Ibid. , I.xii . 2 2 .
to exclude, for its epistemic abjection is the token of its dialectical 5 . Ibid . , I.i.6 and 7 .
progress. We should hesitate before we proclaim every symptom of 6 . Ibid. , I.i. 1 2 .
our ignorance to be pregnant with utopian promise; we are still 7 . Ibid. , I.i. 30.
some way from living in hiding like the people in Rawls's original 8. Ibid. , I.i. 36.
position. Nevertheless, the coming into hiding has already begun. 9 . Ibid. , I.i. 3 8 .
1 0 . Ibid. , I.i.45 .
1 1 . Ibid. , I.i.49.
1 2 . Ibid . , I.v. 2 6 .
1 3 . Ibid. , I.xii.29.
1 4 . Ibid. , I.xii . 34.
1 5 . J.L. Austin, "Pretending" in Philosophical Papers, Oxford, 1 96 1 ,
p. 2 1 0.
1 6 . Ibid. , p. 2 1 5 .
296 N o t e s to pp. 8-22
4
J
Notes to pp. 2 2 -8 297

1 7 . Ibid . , p. 2 1 4.
1 8 . Ibid . , pp. 2 1 5- 1 6 .
1 9 . Ibid . , pp. 206-7.
20. William Wordsworth, The Excursion, V.4-8.
2 1 . Ibid . , V. 54-5 .
2 2 . Ibid . , V. 2 50-4.
2 3 . Ibid . , V. 662-3 and 666-7.
24. The distinction between the concealed and the disguised is
made by A. Child, "Hiddenness: Simple Concealment and
Disguise", Metaphilosophy, 1 ( 1 970) pp. 223-57. My discussion
of the perceptual and the cognitive aspects of perceptual
knowledge is indebted to but does not follow Fred Dretske,
Knowledge and the Flow rif Iriformation, Cambridge, MA, 1 98 1 ,
esp. pp. 1 35--6 8 . Dretske supposes the cognitive digitalisa­
tion of analog percepts to be inferential, while my account of
cognition (see ch. 5) supposes it to be something closer to
seeing-as or gestalt recognition. However, I would argue that
gestalt recognition also involves the digitalisation of analog
information; see M. Bull, "Scheming Schemata", British journal
rifAesthetics, 34 ( 1 994) pp. 207- 1 7 .
2 5 . Edgar Allan Poe, Tales rifMystel)" and Imagination, Ware, 1 99 3 ,
p . 206 .
26. Idem.
27. Ibid. , p. 208 .
2 8 . Ibid. , p. 209.
29. Ibid. , p. 2 1 6 . All emphases in quoted material occur in the
original.
30. Ibid. , p. 2 2 5 .
3 1 . Gilbert Ryle, The Concept rif Mind, Harmondsworth, 1 96 3 ,
esp. pp. 1 4 3ff. and 2 1 1 ff.
3 2 . Stanley Cavell, The Claim if Reason, New York, 1 979, p. 369.
Cavell elides the experience of one aspect disguising the other
with the condition of aspect-blindness in which both aspects
are hidden; see S. Mulhall, On Being in the World, London,
1 990, pp. 84ff, and chapters 5 and 6 below.
3 3 . Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, IV. 2 0 1 -2 .
34. Nobody seems to have imagined a duck-rabbit, but Dante
saw, reflected in Beatrice's eyes, an eagle-lion whose aspects
switched back and forth while the thing itself remained the
same:
Like sun in looking-glass no otherwise,
I saw the Twyjorm mirrored in their range,
Now in the one, now in the other guise.
Think, Reader, think how marvellous and strange
It seemed to me when I beheld the thing
Itselfstand changeless and the image change.
(Purgatorio XXXI . 1 2 1 -6 , tr. Dorothy L. Sayers,
Harmondsworth, 1 95 5 .)
3 5 . Nicolas Cusanus, OJLearned Ignorance, tr. G. Heron, London,
1 954, pp. 27-3 3 . The argument goes as follows. An infinite
line is, of necessity, perfectly straight; this might seem to
exclude the possibility that it forms the circumference of a
circle since the circumference of a circle is necessarily curved.
However, the larger the diameter of a circle, the less curved
its circumference, so "the circumference of the absolutely
greatest possible circle will be the smallest possible curve".
The smallest possible curve is a line that is absolutely straight,
and so in an infinite line "straightness and curve are not mutu­
ally exclusive but are one and the same thing", in that there
298 Notes to pp. 2 8-34 Notes to pp. 3 4- 4 2 299

will be "the absolute maximum of straightness and the 46 . Priest, In Contradiction, pp. 1 1 7-3 3 , and "Contradiction,
absolute minimum of curve". Similarly, since in every triangle Belief, and Rationality", Proceedings 1the Aristotelian Society, 86
the sum of the angles is equal to two right angles, when one ( 1 986) pp. 99- 1 1 6 .
angle increases, the other two become smaller, so that if the 47. Priest, In Contradiction, p. 1 20 .
angle is fully extended to 1 80 degrees, without the triangle 48 . Priest, Beyond the Limits, pp. 2 3-4.
ceasing to exist, there is both one angle and three. And since 49 . Jacques Derrida, Positions, tr. A. Bass, London, 1 98 1 , p. 43.
in a triangle any two sides when joined cannot be smaller 50. Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, tr. B. Johnson, London, 1 98 1 ,
than the third, it is evident that if one side of a triangle is infi­ p. 22 1 .
nite the others must be as well, with the result that all are 5 1 . Derrida, Positions, p. 1 0 1 .
infinite, and as there is only one infinite, all are one infinite 5 2 . Derrida, Dissemination, p. 1 27.
line. The infinite line that is a triangle is also a circle, for if the 53. Idem.
triangle A-B-C is described by the infinite line A-B moving 54. Ibid. , p. 22 1 .
from the fixed point A until it falls on C, then the line B-C, 5 5 . Derrida, Positions, p. 43 .
being part of an infinite arc, is straight, and, as every part of 56. Derrida, Dissemination, p. 1 27 .
the infinite is infmite, infinite, which means that it is not only 5 7 . Georg Lukacs, The Young Hegel, tr. R. Livingstone, London,
part of but the actual circumference of the circle inscribed by 1 975 , p. 276.
the infinite line A-B, but, as there cannot be two infinities, 5 8 . G . W F. Hegel, The Phenomenology 1 Spirit, tr. A.V. Miller,
identical with it. Oxford, 1 977, p. 472 .
36. Ibid. , p. 43 . 59. Derrida, Positions, p. 43.
37. L. Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations 1 Mathematics, tr. 60. Z . Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, Cambridge, 1 99 1 , p. 7.
G.E . M . Anscombe, Oxford, 1 978, p. 256 (IV. 59) . 6 1 . Ibid. , p. 9 .
3 8 . Nicholas of Cusa, De Visione Dei, tr. J. Hopkins, Minneapolis, 62 . Ibid. , p . 1 .
MN, 1 98 5 , p. 1 37. 63 . Ibid. , p. 2 .
39. Ibid . , p. 1 39 . 64. Ibid. , p. 5 5 .
40. Ibid. , p . 1 4 1 . 65 . Ibid. , p. 1 00 .
41 . Ibid. , p. 1 6 1 . 6 6 . Ibid. , pp. 3 , 2 30, 9 8 .
42 . R. Sorensen, Blindspots, Oxford, 1 98 8 , pp. 1 20- 1 . 67. Ibid. , p . 1 00 .
43. Ibid . , pp. 34---40 . 68 . Ibid. , p . 7.
44 . Notably in G . Priest, In Contradiction, Dordrecht, 1 987, and
Beyond the Limits 1 Thought, Cambridge, 1 99 5 .
45 . Priest, Beyond the Limits, p. 5 .
300 Notes to pp. 47-5 3
Chap ter 2 A p ocaly p se
1 . These senses of apocalyptic are explored in Christopher
Rowland, The Open Heaven, London, 1 98 2 ; Norman Cohn,
Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come, New Haven, CT, 1 993;
Stephen 0 ' Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse, New York, 1 994;
Kenelm Burridge, New Heaven, New Earth , Oxford, 1 969;
Frank Kermode, The Sense if an Ending, New York, 1 967;
Jacques Derrida, "Of an Apocalyptic Tone Recently
Adopted in Philosophy", Oiford Literary Review, 6 ( 1 984)
pp. 3-37.
2. J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic lmagination, New York, 1 984.
3. Rowland, Open Heaven.
4. See S . Pinker, The Language Instinct, Harmondsworth, 1 994,
pp. 2 3 3-40.
5 . See David E. Brown, Human Universals, New York, 1 99 1 .
6. Rodney Needham, Primordial Characters, Charlottesville, VA,
1 978, p. 1 7 .
7. Ibid . , p . 1 9 .
8 . For a critique of universals from someone who believes that
explanation consists of "substituting complex pictures for
simple ones", see Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation if Cultures,
London, 1 975 , pp. 3 3-54.
9. For examples see David Maybury-Lewis and Uri Almagor,
eds, The Attraction if Opposites: Thought and Society in the
Dualistic Mode, Ann Arbor, MI, 1 989. The following discussion
ofbinarity is indebted to (but does not always follow) Rodney
Needham, Counterpoints, Berkeley, CA, 1 987.
1 0. G.E . R . Lloyd, Polarity and AnaloB.Y: Two 1Jpes ifArsumentation in
Early Greek Thought, Cambridge, 1 97 1 , p. 94.
1 1 . Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1 005b-1 0 1 2b.
l
l
Notes to pp. 5 3-9 301
1 2 . C.R. Hallpike, The Foundations if Primitive Thought, Oxford,
1 979, pp. 224-5 .
1 3 . Frits Staal, Universals: Studies in Indian Logic and Linguistics,
Chicago, 1 98 8 , pp. 1 09-2 8 .
14. Hallpike, Foundations, p . 2 2 8 .
1 5 . Claude Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures if Kinship,
London, 1 969, p. 1 36 .
1 6 . Serge Tcherkezoff, Dual Classification Reconsidered, Cambridge,
1 987, p. 5 .
1 7 . Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural AnthropoloBJ, Harmondsworth,
1 972, pp. 206-3 1 .
1 8 . Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1 005b 2 5 , 1 0 1 2a 24.
1 9 . Graham Priest, Beyond the Limits if Thought, Cambridge,
1 995 .
20. G.WF. Hegel, The Science if Logic, London, 1 969, p. 440.
2 1 . Levi-Strauss, Structural AnthropoloBJ, p. 1 5 1 .
2 2 . N.J. Allen, "Hierarchical Opposition and Some Other Types of
Relation" in R. Barnes, D. de Coppet and R . Parkin, eds,
Contexts and Levels, Oxford, 1 98 5 , p. 2 8 .
2 3 . Anita Jacobson-Widding, Red- White-Black as a Mode if Thought,
Stockholm, 1 979, p. 369.
24. Ibid. , p. 374.
2 5 . Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus, London, 1 970, and Essays on
Individualism, Chicago, 1 986, chs 8 and 9. Serge Tcherkezoff,
"Hierarchical Reversal Ten Years On", JASO, 25 ( 1 994)
pp. 1 33-67 and 229-5 3 .
26. Tcherkezoff, Dual Classification, p . 5 .
2 7 . Dumont, Essays on Individualism, p . 1 26 .
2 8 . Tcherkezoff, Dual Classification, p. 1 32n.
29. Hegel, Science ifLogic, p. 440.
30. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, London, 1 95 8 , p. 607 .
302 N o t e s to

3 1 . Idem.
3 2 . Ibid. , p. 6 1 0.
pp. 60-4

T
I
Notes to pp. 64-7 1

48 . Claude Levi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked, London, 1 969,

p. 5 3 .
303

3 3 . Ibid . , p. 607. 49 . Claude Levi-Strauss, The Naked Man, London, 1 98 1 , p . 675 .

34. lbid. , p. 6 1 1 . 50. Girard, Scapegoat, pp. 1 - 1 1 .
3 5 . Julia Kristeva, Powers ?JBorror, New York, 1 98 2 , p. 2 . 5 1 . Girard, Violence and the Sacred, pp. 1 69-9 2 .
36. Ibid. , p. 1 . 5 2 . Jacobus d e Voragine, The Golden Legend, tr. W G . Ryan,
37. Ibid. , pp. 4, 2 . Princeton, NJ, 1 99 3 , vol. I, pp. 1 66-7 1 [legend 45).
3 8 . Ibid. , p . 4 . 5 3 . On Moses see Girard, Scapegoat, p. 1 78 .
3 9 . Ibid. , p . 9 . 54. Kristeva, Powers, p. 1 0.
40. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, London, 1 966, p . 3 8 . 5 5 . Kristeva, Powers, pp. 95 , 1 1 0 .
41 . Ibid. , pp. 1 7 , 65ff. 56. Lev. 1 1 . 2 3-5 .
42 . Lev. 1 9 . 1 9 . (Unless otherwise specified, all biblical quota­ 57. Kristeva, Powers, p. 1 38 .
tions are taken from the New English Bible.) 5 8 . Ibid. , pp. 1 38 , 1 54.
43. Douglas, Purity and Danger, pp. 4 1 -57. 5 9 . Ibid. , p. 209.
44. Edmund Leach, "Anthropological Aspects of Language : 60. Ibid. , p. 1 54.
Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse", in Eric Lenneberg, ed. , 6 1 . Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, Princeton, NJ, 1 973, p. 1 62 .
New Directions in the Study ifLanguage, Cambridge, MA, 1 964, 62 . Ibid . , p . 243 .
pp. 3 9-40. 6 3 . Burridge, New Heaven, New Earth, p. 1 1 2 .
45 . It is interesting to note that the word "contradiction", that 64. Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound, London, 1 957,
which cannot be said, itself suggests a linguistic taboo, and that pp. 8 3-6, 1 50.
the Sanskrit word which corresponds most closely to "contra­ 65 . Ibid. , p. 250.
diction", vipratisedha, is derived from a root sidh-, meaning 66. Ibid. , pp. 249-50.
"to keep away", from which comes the word pratisedha, denot­ 67. Jub. 2 3 . 1 4. Quotations from apocryphal texts are taken from
ing a prohibition (usually a ritual prohibition) . See Staal, H . F. D. Sparks, ed . , The Apocryphal Old Testament, Oxford,
Universals, p. 1 1 0 . 1 984.
46. Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred, Baltimore, MD, 1 977; The 68. Baruch 27. 1 2- 1 4 .
Scapegoat, London, 1 986; Things Hidden since the Foundation if 69. Matt. 1 3 .
the World, London, 1 987. 70. Matt. 7. 1 5 .
47. For my reservations about Girard's work, see M . Bull, 7 1 . Dan. 1 2 . 1 1 .
"Cultural Criminology: the Work of Rene Girard", JASO, 1 9 72 . Mark 1 3 . 1 4.
( 1 988) pp. 265-74. 73 . Deut. 2 2 . 1 0 .
 T
304 Notes to pp. 72-6 Notes to pp . 76-8 8 305

74. David Bryan, Cosmos, Chaos, and the Kosher Mentality, Sheffield, 94. Rev. 1 3 . 8 (King James Version; some translations differ) and
I

1 995 , p. 239. 6 . 1 ff.

7 5. The early Christian acceptance that Gentiles might be 95 . Worsley, The Trumpet, pp. 1 26-30 .
Christians prefigures many modern acts of recognition, such as 96. Ibid . , p . 2 1 .
the acknowledgement of the full humanity of slaves. See chap­ 97. See M. Bull, "Yeats's 'Rough Beast' : Sphinx or Manticore?",
ter 6 below. Notes and Qyeries, 240 ( 1 995) pp. 209- 1 0 .
76. Rowland, Open Heaven, pp. 3 7 1 -3 . 98. The new order is often one in which the undifferentiated is
77. Derrida, "Apocalyptic", p . 30. juxtaposed with one of its constituent elements, as in the
78 . This view is held by G. Gnoli, Zoroaster's Time and Homeland, "Animal Apocalypse" (see below) where the saviour (white­
Naples, 1 980, and many earlier Zoroastrian scholars. It has and-black) is juxtaposed with the saved (white). This may
been challenged, notably by Mary Boyce, A History if sound like the shift of levels that Tcherkezoff describes as the
Zoroastrianism vol. 1 , Leiden, 1 97 5 , pp. 2 1 4- 1 6 . totalisation in which (a and b) replaces a or b, but this is not
79. Yasna 5 1 . 6 and 3 3 . 1 . As translated by S . Insler in "The Gathas the case: it is not 1 3 as opposed to 6 + 7 but (6 & 7) as
of Zarathustra", Acta lranica 3rd ser. , 1 ( 1 975). opposed to 6 or 7.
80. Yasna 5 1 . 9 . 99. Baruch 2 9 . 3-4.
8 1 . Yasna 3 2 . 14- 1 5 . 1 00 . M.H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism, London, 1 97 1 , p. 1 69.
8 2 . Frances M . Young, The Use if Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Christian 1 0 1 . Robert Musil, The Man without Qyalities, tr. E . Wilkins and
Writersfrom the New Testament to John Chrysostom, Philadelphia, E. Kaiser, London, 1 979, vol. 3 , p. 1 59 .
PA, 1 979, pp. 79-8 8 . 1 0 2 . Ibid. , pp. 280-1 .
8 3 . Heb. 1 0 . 1 2- 1 3 , cf. 9 . 26-8 . 103. Ibid. , p. 286.
84. Dan. 1 2 . 1 1 . 1 04. Ibid. , p. 329.
8 5 . 1 Enoch 1 00 . 1 - 3 . 1 05 . Ibid. , p. 43 1 .
86. Girard, Scapeooat, pp. 88-94. 1 06 . Kermode, Sense, p. 45 .
87. Testament of Abraham, 1 3 . 1 -7. 1 07. 1 Enoch 8 3 .4.
88 . Girard, Thinns Hidden, pp. 1 44-6 . 1 08 . For an interpretation of the historical material see Patrick
89. Luke 1 1 . 50 . Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse if 1 Enoch,
90. 1 Enoch 6 2 . 7 . Atlanta, GA, 1 993, pp. 2 1 -60.
91 . Gen. 5 . 24; Jub. 4 . 2 3 . 1 09 . Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality
92 . 2 Enoch 2 3 . 40. and Evolution, Berkeley, CA, 1 969.
93. G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in Enolish, Harmondsworth, 1 1 0. One obvious explanation is that this reflects the reddish sky
1 995 , pp. 360-2 . seen when day and night merge into one another, as it does in
306 Notes to pp. 8 8-93

the story of the Israelite victory over the Moabites (2 Kings

3 . 2 2 ) , and in the Meru myth of the exodus, in which the
T 1 27 . Ibid. , p. 34.
1 28 . Ibid. , p. 5 .
Notes to pp. 93-1 00 307

origin of sub-tribes is explained by the fact that those who 1 29 . Ibid. , p. 5 . See Lev. 20. 1 1 .
crossed the water during the night were called black, those 1 30. Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, London, 1 98 1 , pp. 6 1 -1 7 1 .
who crossed at dawn red, and those who crossed when the 131. Plato, Phaedrus, 274d-275b.
sun was up white (B. Bernardi, The Muawe, London, 1 95 9 , 1 32 . Derrida, Dissemination, p. 97.
p. 5 8 ) . 1 33 . Ibid. , p. 98.
1 1 1 . Jacobson-Widding, Red- White-Black, p. 366. 1 34. Ibid. , p. 99.
1 1 2 . Bryan, Cosmos, p. 78 . 1 35 . Ibid. , p. 1 0 3 .
1 1 3 . Tiller, Commentary, p. 226. 1 36 . Ibid . , pp. 1 03 , 1 1 9 .
1 14. See Athalya Brenner, Color Terms in the Old Testament, Sheffield, 1 3 7. Jacques Derrida, Positions, London, 1 98 1 , p . 4 3 .
1 98 2 , pp. 62-6. 1 3 8 . Derrida, Dissemination, pp. 1 28-34.
1 1 5 . Midrash Rabbah, ed. H. Freeman and M. Simon, Numbers, tr. 1 39 . See Dennis Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece, London,
J.J. Slotki, London, 1 939, vol. II, pp. 755-6. 1 99 1 , pp. 1 39-65 .
1 1 6 . Ibid . , p. 757 n . 2 . 1 40. Derrida, Dissemination, p. 1 3 3 .
1 1 7 . A variant of Mishnah Parah 3 . 5 ; see L. Ginzberg, The Leaends cif 141 . Derrida, Positions, p . 42 .
the jews, Philadelphia, PA, 1 909-38, vol. 6, p. 79. 1 42 . Ibid. , p. 45 .
1 1 8 . L. Wright, "Forcing the End", The New Yorker, 20 July 1 998, 1 43 . Jub. 4. 1 9 .
pp. 42-5 3 . 1 44. 1 Enoch 8 3 . 2 .
1 1 9 . At least one argues, without compelling evidence, that there
must be a translation problem at this point. See Tiller,
Commentary, p. 2 2 8 . Chap ter 3 Hegel : F r o m A p ocaly p se
1 20 . Tiller, Commentary, pp. 2 0 , 384. to T o tality
1 2 1 . Matthew Black, The Book q[Enoch, Leiden, 1 98 5 , p. 280.
1 22 . Derrida, "Apocalyptic". 1 . G. W F. Hegel, The Science cif Loaic, tr. W.J. Johnston and
1 2 3 . Christopher Norris, "Versions of Apocalypse: Kant, Derrida, L.G. Struthers, London, 1 929, vol. 2 , pp. 66-7.
Foucault" in M. Bull, ed. , Apocalypse Theory and the Ends cif the 2 . G. W F. Hegel, Encyclopaedia qfthe Philosophical Sciences, vol. I,
World, Oxford, 1 995 , pp. 2 36 , 2 3 2 . tr. W Wallace, Oxford, 1 975 , p. 52 (32). Where applicable,
1 24. Ibid. , pp. 2 35-6 . references to Hegel give the page number in the translation
1 2 5 . Derrida, "Apocalyptic", p. 30. first, followed by the section number in brackets.
1 26. Ibid. , pp. 2 3--4. 3 . Hegel, Enc. , I, p. 1 3 3 (89) .
308 Notes to pp. 1 00�5 Notes to pp. 1 0 6� 1 1 309

4 . Idem . 2 2 . Ibid. , 1 , p. 1 5 5 .
5 . Hegel, Enc . , I, p. 52 (32). My understanding of Hegel's views 2 3 . Hegel, Enc . , I , p. 9 (6) .
on contradiction is informed by Graham Priest, "Dialectic and 24. I. Kant, Religion within the Limits if Reason Alone, tr.
Dialetheic", Science and Society, 53 ( 1 989) pp. 388-4 1 5 . For an T.M . Greene and H . H . Hudson, New York, 1 960, p. 8 5 .
alternative account see Robert Pippin, "Hegel's Metaphysics 25 . Ibid. , p . 8 6 .
and the Problem of Contradiction", Journal if the History if 2 6 . Ibid. , p. 9 1 .
Philosophy, 1 6 ( 1 978) pp. 301�1 2 . 27. Ibid . , p. 1 1 3 .
6 . Hegel, Enc. I, p . 77 (48). 2 8 . Ibid. , p . 86.
7. Ibid. , p. 78 (48 ) . 2 9 . I . Kant, On History, tr. L.W Beck, New York, 1 96 3 ,
8 . Ibid . , p. 4 9 (28) . M y account o f the infinite i n Hegel is pp. 1 7�1 8 .
indebted to Graham Priest, Beyond the Limits if Thought, 3 0 . Ibid. , p . 1 35 .
Cambridge, 1 995 , pp. 1 1 3-2 1 , and A.W Moore, The lrifinite, 3 1 . Ibid. , p . 5 1 .
London, 1 990. 3 2 . Ibid . , p. 1 44.
9. Hegel, Science, vol. 1 , p. 1 43 . 3 3 . Kant, Religion, p. 125. On the eighteenth-century idea that the
1 0. Ibid. , p . 1 5 2 . immortal soul might enjoy progress in heaven, see
1 1 . Ibid. , p . 1 5 3 . C. McDannell and B. Lang, Heaven: a History, New Haven, CT,
1 2 . I . Kant, Critique if Pure Reason, tr. N . Kemp Smith, London, 1 990, pp. 3 8 1 �2 n.41 .
1 929, pp. 396fT. 34. Kant, On History, p. 77.
1 3 . Hegel, Science, 1 , p. 1 50 . 3 5 . G. W F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy if World History:
14. Hegel, Enc. , I, p. 1 37 (94) . I t i s worth noting that Nicholas of Introduction: Reason in History, tr. H . B. Nisbet, Cambridge,
Cusa also used the infinite as an example of the coincidentia 1 975, p. 27.
oppositorum; see De Visione Dei, tr. J. Hopkins, Minneapolis, 36. Ibid. , p. 29.
MN, 1 98 5 , pp. 1 65ff. and 1 79fT. 37. Ibid. , p. 64.
1 5 . Hegel, Science, 1 , p. 1 55 . 38. Ibid. , p. 1 25 .
1 6 . Hegel, Enc. , I , p. 1 38 (94) . 39. Ibid. , p. 63.
1 7 . Hegel, Science, 1 , p. 1 5 5 . 40. Ibid. , p. 65 .
1 8 . Hegel, Enc. , I , p . 1 38 (94). 41 . Ibid. , p. 149.
1 9 . I. Kant, Critique ifPractical Reason, tr. L.W Beck, New York, 42 . G. W F. Hegel, Lectures on the History if Philosophy, tr.
1 99 3 , pp. 1 28-9 . E . S . Haldane and F. Simson, London, 1 892, vol. 3 , p. 5 5 1 .
20. Ibid. , p. 1 29 . 43. Idem.
2 1 . Hegel, Science, 1 , p. 1 46 . 44. Hegel, LPWH, 3 , p. 5 1 .
310 Notes to pp. 1 1 1 -2 0 Notes to pp. 1 20-5 311

45 . G.W F. Hegel, Philosophy if History, tr. J. Sibree, New York,
1 956, p. 345 .
46 . G. W F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy if Religion, tr.
E . B. Speirs and J.B. Sanderson, London, 1 895 , vol. 3 , p. 1 2 .
47. Ibid . , 3 , p. 25 .
48 . K. Lowith, Meaning in History, Chicago, 1 949, p. 54.
49 . K. Lowith, From Hegel to Nietzsche, London, 1 965 , p. 3 5 .
5 0 . C. O' Regan, The Heterodox Hegel, Albany, NY, 1 994,
p. 303.
5 1 . H.S. Harris, Hegel's Development: Toward the Sunlight, Oxford,
1 972, p. 99.
5 2 . Lowith, Meaning in History, p. 1 1 4.
5 3 . Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy if the Modern Age,
Cambridge, MA, 1 985 , pp. 2 3-4.
54. Ibid. , p. 30.
5 5 . Idem.
56. Hans Blumenberg, "On a Lineage of the Idea of Progress",
Social Research, 41 ( 1 974) p. 6 .
5 7 . Ibid. , p . 7 .
5 8 . Ibid. , p . 1 8 .
59. Ibid. , p. 49 .
60 . Blumenberg, Legitimacy, p. 49.
6 1 . Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, The Education if the Human Race,
4th edn, tr. F. W Robertson, London, 1 896, p. xiv.
62. Ibid. , pp. 70-2 .
63. Richard More, the seventeenth-century Protestant translator
of Joseph Mede's Key if the Revelation, was by no means
unusual in referring to "The obscuritie of this (as of all other
Prophecies) untill the event should manifest them". Joseph
Mede, The Key if the Revelation, London, 1 643 , translator's
introduction.
64. Juan Maldonado, Commentarii in prophetas 1111, Tournon, 1 6 1 1 ,
p. 65 3 .
6 5 . Joachim of Fiore, Sull 'Apocalisse (Enchiridion super Apocalypsim),
tr. A. Tagliapietra, Milan, 1 994, pp. 2 1 8- 1 9 .
66 . Joachim of Fiore, Liber Concordiae, Venice, 1 5 1 9 , f. 96r.
67. Francis Bacon, The Advancement if Learning, Oxford, 1 974,
p. 78.
68. Idem; see also Charles Webster, The Great 1nstauration,
London, 1 975 , ch. 1 .
69. Blumenberg, "Lineage", p. 1 8 .
70. Francis Bacon, Works, 7 vols, London, 1 857-9, vol. 2 , p. 1 47.
7 1 . He wrote:
If before the Law men had a light whereby they might finde the
truth more clearly than we, then the former times were times
of greater light and grace than the later; but this is contrary
both to the generall judgment of the Christian world, and to
universall experience. For as light naturally increaseth more
and more untill it be perfect day, so it hath been with light
spirituall.
(W Twisse, The Doubting Conscience Resolved, London, 1 65 2 ,
pp. 93-4.)
72. See Joachim, Lib. Cone. f. 96r and f. 1 27v.
73 . Kant, Pure Reason, Bii; Bacon, Works, vol. 4, p. 20 and vol . 1 ,
pp. 1 32-3 .
74. Kant, Pure Reason, p. 665 .
75 . Bacon, Works, 4, p. 20.
76. Kant, On History, p. 1 3 .
77. Hegel, LHP, 3 , p . 1 70.
78 . Hegel, Science, 2 , p. 68.
312 Notes to pp. 1 25-32 Notes to pp. 1 3 2-8 313

79. G.W F. Hegel, Early Theological Writings, tr. T.M . Knox, 95. The first eagle represents the sixty-three generations of
Chicago, 1 948 , p. 256. mankind in the age of the father, while the second represents
80. Ibid. , pp. 260-1 . the tree propagated from the topmost branches of the first,
8 1 . Ibid. , p. 262. and depicts the sixty-three generations of the age of the son;
82. G. W F. Hegel, Theologische Jugendschriften, ed. H. Nohl, see Reeves and Hirsch-Reich, Figurae, pp. 1 60-3.
Tiibingen, 1 907, p. 304n . , quoted in Harris, Hegel's 96. Joachim, Lib. Cone. (Daniels edn ) , p. 1 5 1 .
Development, p. 363n. 97. See Reeves and Hirsch-Reich, Figurae, pp. 1 64--9 .
83. Hegel, ETW, p. 1 6 1 . 98. Joachim, Expositio in Apocalypsim, Venice, 1 5 27, f. 36v.
84. Kant, Pure Reason, pp. 402ff. 99. At the beginning of the section, he mentions Lessing's claim
8 5 . Hegel, ETW, p. 257. that Jewish culture can be identified with the state of child­
86. Ibid. , p. 2 5 8 . hood. Hegel, ETW, p. 256.
8 7 . Hegel, Science, 1 , p . 2 1 1 .
88. Hegel, ETW, p. 2 6 1 .
89. Harris, Hegel's Development, p. 36 1 . Chap ter 4 The E nd : Watts, Kant ,
90 . M. Reeves and B. Hirsch-Reich, The Figurae rfjoachim rfFiore, B enj a m in
Oxford, 1 972, pp. 27-38.
9 1 . The intermediaries are difficult to identify, for there seems to 1. Rev. 1 0. 6 (King James Version).
be nothing in Hegel's immediate sources that is as close to 2. Rev. 1 0.7.
Joachim's ideas as Hegel's own passage quoted above. 3. I. Watts, The World to Come, London, 1 739, p. 1 02 .
Nevertheless, it is worth noting that Jacob Boehme made 4. Ibid. , p . 1 03 .
repeated use of similar arboreal imagery in discussing the 5. Ibid. , p . 1 1 2 .
Trinity and the Christian life. 6 . Ibid. , p. 1 1 4 ( 1 Pet. 4.7) .
92 . Ez. 1 7 . 22-3 ; Joachim, Lib. Cone. , ed. E.R. Daniels, Transactions 7 . Ibid. , pp. 1 04--5 (Rev. 2 2 . 1 1 ) . The text i s also cited by Kant,
rj the American Philosophical Society, 73, pt 8 , 1 973 , p. 1 45 . in "The End of All Things"; I. Kant, On History, ed. Lewis
(This edition includes only the first four books; the much White Beck, New York, 1 96 3 , p. 8 1 .
longer fifth book, referred to above, is available only in the 8 . Watts, World to Come, p. 1 1 5 .
Venice edition of 1 5 1 9 . ) 9 . Ibid. , pp. 1 35--6.
93. Joachim, Lib. Cone. (Daniels edn ) , p. 1 4 5 . 1 0 . I. Watts, Zukiiriftige Welt, oder Reden von der Freude und dem
94. L. Tondelli, M. Reeves and B. Hirsch-Reich, eds, Il Libro delle Elende, Halle, 1 745 .
figure dell'Abate Gioacchino da Fiore, Turin, 1 95 3 , tav. V and 1 1 . Kant, On History, pp. 76--7.
VI. 1 2 . Ibid. , p. 69.
314 Notes to pp. 1 3 9-43 N o t e s to p p . 1 43-7 315

1 3 . Watts, World to Come, p . 1 39 . 3 2 . See France, La Revolte, ch. 5 .

14. Kant, On History, p. 77. 3 3 . France, La Revolte, p. 287; Scholem, "Walter Benjamin",
1 5 . Ibid . , pp. 77, 70. pp. 57-9 .
1 6 . Ibid . , p. 77. 34. Benjamin, Correspondence, p. 1 07.
1 7 . Ibid. , p. 75 . 35. Kant, On History, p. 24.
1 8 . Idem. 36. France, La Revolte, chs 1 8-2 1 .
1 9 . Ibid. , pp. 78-9. 37. Kant, On History, p. 1 8n.
20. Ibid. , p. 78 . 38. France, La Revolte, p. 2 5 2 .
2 1 . I. Kant, Religion within the Limits if Reason Alone, New York, 3 9 . B . Cendrars, "La fin du monde filmee par l' Ange N. D.",
1 960, p. 1 26 . Oeuvres completes, vol. 2, Paris, 1 96 2 , p. 3 8 ; cf. Joshua
2 2 . See E . Cassirer, Kant's Life and Thought, New Haven, CT, 1 98 1 , 1 0. 1 2-1 5 .
pp. 392--4. 40. Benjamin, GS, vol. 2 , part 2 , p . 799 . O n Benjamin and
2 3 . W Benjamin, Illuminations, London, 1 973, p. 249. Cendrars see O. K. Werckmeister, "Walter Benjamin's Angel
24. Rev. 1 0 .4 (KJV) . of History, or the Transfiguration of the Revolutionary into the
25 . G. Scholem, "Walter Benjamin and his Angel" in G. Smith, Historian", Critical Inquiry, 22 ( 1 996) pp. 239-67.
ed. , On Walter Benjamin, Cambridge, MA, 1 988, pp. 5 1 -89. 41 . Benjamin, GS, vol. VII, p. 437; F. M . Dostoevskii, Die
On Benjamin's use of "apocatastasis", another motif from Daemonen, tr. E . K . Rahsin, Munich, 1 906 .
Christian eschatology, see A. Benjamin, "Time and Task: 42 . Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Devils, tr. D. Magarshack,
Benjamin and Heidegger Showing the Present", in P. Osborne Harmondsworth, 1 97 1 , pp. 242-3 .
and A. Benjamin, eds, Walter Benjamin's Philosophy, London, 43 . Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 245 .
1 994, pp. 233ff. 44. W Benjamin, "Karl Kraus" in One- Way Street and Other Writings,
26. W Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. R . Tiedemann and London, 1 979, p. 264.
H . Schweppenhauser, Frankfurt am Main, 1 972-89, vol . 1 , 45 . Ibid. , p. 27 1 .
part 3 , p. 1 226. 46 . Ibid. , p. 288 . See K. Kraus, Worte in Versen, Munich, 1 959,
27. W. Benjamin, The Correspondence if Walter Benjamin, pp. 1 09-1 4.
1 91 0-1 940, ed . G. Scholem and T.W. Adorno, Chicago, 47. Ibid. , p. 271 .
1 994, pp. 98, 1 03--4, 1 1 5 . 48 . Ibid. , p. 272 .
2 8 . Ibid. , p . 1 05 . 49 . Ibid. , p. 262.
29. I . Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1 9 1 2 , vol. 8 , pp. 325-39. 50. Ibid. , p. 283.
30. Anatole France, La Revolte des anges, Paris, 1 9 14, p. 1 1 2 . 5 1 . Ibid. , p. 2 90.
3 1 . Benjamin, Correspondence, p . 1 07 . 5 2 . Benjamin, GS, vol. 2 , part 3 , pp. 1 1 06-7.
316 Notes to pp. 1 48-5 2 N o t e s t o p p . 1 5 3 -7 317

53. Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 2 5 2 . 7 1 . M . Roth, KnowinB and History: Appropriations if Hesel in

54. Idem . Twentieth-Century France, Ithaca, NY, 1 988, pp. 225-7.
55. Ibid. , p. 254. 72. Kant, On History, p. 1 6 .
56. Idem. 73 . Ibid. , p . 1 7 .
57. Ibid. , p. 2 5 3 . 74. Ibid. , p . 1 8 .
58. W Benjamin, "N", in G . Smith, ed . , Benjamin: Philosophy, 75 . P. Anderson, A Zone if Enaaaement, London , 1 99 2 ,
Aesthetics, History, Chicago, 1 989, p. 64. pp. 230-50.
59. Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 248 . 76. The image of the human character as crooked wood in need of
60. Benjamin echoes this view in G. Smith, ed. , Benjamin, p. 64. straightening is found in Plato, Protaaoras, 325d, but Kant's
61 . Kant, On History, p. 1 5 . deployment of it may also reflect the Judaeo- Christian tradi­
62 . Ibid. , pp. 1 5- 1 6 . tion, where "crooked" is the epithet characteristic of the
6 3 . The possibility that Hegel's account of lordship and bondage is serpent, the enemy of God, and it is a central eschatological
indebted to Kant's observations on this topic is rarely consid­ expectation that the crooked will be made straight.
ered. However, Kant's comment on the esteem in which 77. Kant, On History, p. 1 7.
bravery is held in the "state of nature" - "That man should be 78 . A . Kojeve, introduction to the ReadinB if Heael, Ithaca, NY,
able to possess a thing (i.e. honour) and make it an end to be 1 980, p. 2 3 .
valued more than life itself . . . surely bespeaks a certain nobil­ 7 9 . Ibid . , p . 2 0 .
ity in his natural disposition" - seems to prefigure Hegel's 8 0 . Ibid . , p . 45 .
account of mastery. Kant, ReliBion within the Limits if Reason 8 1 . Ibid. , p. 225 n . 2 2 .
Alone, p. 28n. 82. Ibid. , pp. 47, 69.
64. G.W F. Hegel, The Phenomenolosy if Spirit, tr. A.V. Miller, 83. Indeed, Kojeve used Marx's observation that "Hegel
Oxford, 1 977, pp. 1 1 1 - 1 9 . For a full discussion of the grasps labour as the essence of man" as an epigraph;
master-slave dialectic in Hegel, see below, ch. 6. Introduction, p. 3 .
65 . Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 246 . 84. Ibid. , p . 5 3 .
66. Idem. 8 5 . Benjamin, "N", p . 7 1 .
67. Idem. 86. Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 247.
68. Josef Dietzgen accorded Kant and Hegel equal importance; 87. Benjamin, "N", pp. 70-1 .
see K. Vorlaender, Kant und Marx. Ein BeitraB zur Philosophie des 8 8 . Benjamin, GS, vol. 1 , part 3 , p. 1 24 1 and Illuminations,
Sozialismus, Tiibingen, 1 9 1 1 , p. 96. pp. 25 1 , 2 5 3 .
69. Benjamin, Illuminations, pp. 250- 1 . 8 9 . Benjamin, Illuminations, p . 25 1 .
70 . Ibid. , p. 25 1 . 90 . Ibid. , p. 2 5 3 .
 •

318 Notes to pp. 1 57-70 Notes to pp. 1 7 0-4 319

9 1 . Benjamin, GS, vol. 2 , part 3 , p. 1 2 3 2 , as translated in 7 . Jay, Force Fields, p. 1 04.

R. Tiedemann , "Historical Materialism or Political 8. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, London, 1 95 8 , p. 302.
Messianism?" in Smith, ed. , Benjamin, p. 201 . 9 . Jay, Downcast Eyes, p. 2 9 1 .
92. Ovid, Metamorphoses, III. 660- 1 . 1 0. Jay, Marxism and Totality, p. 3 5 3 .
93 . Ibid . , III.668-9. 1 1 . Ibid. , p . 340.
94. L. Niethammer, Posthistoire, London, 1 992, p. 73. 1 2 . Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique ifDialectical Reason, London, 1 976,
95 . Hegel, Phenomenolo8Y, p. 27; Benjamin, One- Way Street, p. 239. p. 45 .
96. France, La Revolte, p. 25 1 . 1 3 . Jay, Marxism and Totality, p. 454.
97. Benjamin, "N", p. 72. 14. Lucien Goldmann, Lukacs and Heidegger, London, 1 977,
98 . Dostoyevsky, Devils, p. 244. pp. 40-5 1 . See also Youssef lshaghpour, "On Goldmann's Lukacs
99. Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 2 5 5 . and Heidegger", Philosophical Forum, 23 (1 991-2) pp. 1 03-2 3 .
1 00 . Watts, World to Come, p . 1 22 . 1 5 . Martin Heidegger, "The Age of the World Picture" in The
1 0 1 . Kant, On History, p . 69. Q!lestion Concerning Technolo8Y, New York, 1 977, p. 1 30 .
1 6 . Ibid. , p . 1 42 . Heidegger i s not, o f course, hostile to all types
of vision. See below, and see also Stephen Houlgate, "Vision,
C h ap t e r 5 T h e World in Hiding : Reflection, and Openness: The ' Hegemony of Vision' from a
A nti- V isual H olis m Hegelian Point of View", and David Michael Levin, "Decline
and Fall : Ocularcentrism in Heidegger's Reading of the
1 . See J.J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, New History of Metaphysics" in David Michael Levin, ed. , Modernity
York, 1 966, p. 293. and the Hegemony if Vision, Berkeley, CA, 1 99 3 , as well as
2 . M. Jay, Marxism and Totality, Berkeley, CA, 1 984, and Downcast David Michael Levin's earlier study, The Opening if Vision:
Eyes: The Denigration if Vision in Twentieth-Century French Nihilism and the Postmodern Situation, New York, 1 98 8 .
Thought, Berkeley, CA, 1 993. 1 7 . Heidegger, "World Picture", p . 1 3 1 .
3. Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness, London, 1 97 1 , 1 8 . Jay, Marxism and Totality, p. 332.
p. 27. 19. Jay, Downcast Eyes, p. 498 .
4. Jay, Marxism and Totality, pp. 5 1 4-1 5 . 20. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror if Nature, Princeton,
5 . "In the Empire of the Gaze" appeared in David Couzens Hoy, NJ, 1 979 , p. 1 1 .
ed. , Foucault: A Critical Reader, Oxford, 1 986; three other 2 1 . Ibid. , p. 37 1 .
essays are reprinted in Martin Jay's Force Fields, London, 2 2 . Ibid. , p. 1 8 1 .
1 99 3 . 2 3 . Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation,
6. Jay, "Empire", p . 1 96 . Oxford, 1 984, p. 2 2 .
320 Notes to pp. 1 74-8 1 Notes to pp. 1 82-8 321

24. "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" in ibid. , 47 . Heidegger, "World Picture", p . 1 3 1 .
pp. 1 8 3-98 . 48 . Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. J. Macquarrie and
2 5 . Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge, E . Robinson, Oxford, 1 962, p. 1 29 .
1 989, pp. 1 0- 1 1 . 49 . Ibid. , p . 1 2 8 .
26. Davidson, Inquiries, p. 1 8 3 . 5 0 . Ibid. , p . 1 0 1 .
27. Heidegger, "World Picture", p . 1 34. 5 1 . Ibid . , p. 207.
2 8 . For a critical response to Rorty see Dorothea Frede, "Beyond 5 2 . Ibid . , p. 98.
Realism and Anti-Realism: Rorty on Heidegger and 53. Idem.
Davidson", Review if Metaphysics, 40 ( 1 987) pp. 733-5 7 . 54. Ibid. , pp. 1 90- 1 .
Rorty's paper "Beyond Realism and Anti-Realism" appears in 5 5 . Ibid. , p. 1 9 1 .
L. Nagl and R. Heinrich, eds, Wo steht die Ana!Jtische Philosophie 56. Ibid. , p. 1 90 .
heute?, Wiener Reihe 1 ( 1 986) pp. 1 03- 1 5 . 57. Ibid. , p. 1 89.
29. Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p . 1 0. 58. Ibid. , pp. 1 89-90.
30. Goldmann , Lukacs and Heidegger, p. 6 . 59. Ibid . , p. 1 05 .
3 1 . Lukacs, History, pp. 1 86-7; Heidegger, "World Picture", 60 . Ibid. , p. 1 9 1 .
pp. 1 3 3 , 1 5 1 . 61. Ibid. , p. 1 06 .
3 2 . Heidegger, "World Picture", p. 1 3 3 . 62 . Ibid. , p . 1 04.
3 3 . Lukacs, History, p . 200. 63. Ibid. , p. 200 .
34. Idem. 64. Ibid. , p . 1 97.
3 5 . Davidson, Inquiries, p. 1 84. 65 . Unlike Rorty, Mulhall opposes Heidegger and Wittgenstein to
36. Lukacs, History, p. 1 89. Davidson; however, as Mulhall acknowledges, the essay with
37. Davidson, Inquiries, p. 1 9 5 . which we (and Rorty) are concerned, Davidson's "On the
3 8 . Lukacs, History, p . 1 90 . Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme", appears to be in tension
3 9 . Ibid . , p . 1 9 1 . with some of Davidson's other statements about language and
40. Davidson, Inquiries, p. 1 98 . to be more compatible with Heidegger and Wittgenstein;
4 1 . Lukacs, History, p . 1 89 . Mulhall, On Being, pp. 1 05-6 .
42 . Davidson, Inquiries, p . 1 98 . 66 . Ibid. , p. 1 24.
43 . Lukacs, History, p . 204. 67. Idem.
44. Rorty, Mirror, p. 1 3 . 68 . Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, tr. G. E .M.
45 . Goldmann, Lukc1cs, pp. 27-39 . Anscombe, New York, 1 95 8 , p. 2 1 2 .
46. S . Mulhall, On Being in the World, London, 1 990, p . 1 20 . 69. Mulhall, On Being, p. 142.
322 Notes to pp. 1 8 8-96 N o t e s to pp. 1 99-206 323

70. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure if Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, C h ap ter 6 C o m ing into Hiding :
1 962, p. 1 50 . T h e M aster- S lav e D ialectic
7 1 . Ibid. , p. 1 1 1 .
72. Ibid. , p. 1 1 0. 1 . Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness, London, 1 97 1 ,
73. Davidson, Inquiries, p. 1 87. p . 200.
74. Ibid. , pp. 1 96 . 2. Ibid. , p. 87.
75 . Ibid. , pp. 1 96 , 1 97. 3. According to Lukacs, "the personality can do no more than
76. R . Sorensen, Blindspots, Oxford, 1 988, pp. 1 76-7. look on helplessly while its own existence is reduced to an iso­
77 . Lukacs, History, p. 1 87. lated particle and fed into an alien system"; ibid. , p. 90.
78 . Heidegger, "World Picture", p. 1 44. 4. Ibid. , p. 8 3 .
79. Idem. 5. Ibid. , p . 1 84.
80. Ibid . , pp. 1 45-6 . The relationship between Heidegger's 6. See ibid. , pp. 1 65-7, 1 69 , 1 72 , 1 8 1 , 1 85 .
conception of aletheia (truth as unconcealment) and aspect­ 7. S . Mulhall, On Being in the World, London, 1 990, p. 1 2 5 .
dawning must await exploration elsewhere, but it is worth Mulhall has recently explored the connection between aspect­
noting that the distinction made in this chapter between aspec­ perception and the Marxist concept of alienation in
tival and perspectival ways of seeing has some overlaps with "Species-being, Teleology and Individuality, pt. III", Angelaki,
the distinction David Michael Levin derives from Heidegger 3 ( 1 998) pp. 95-1 0 1 .
between the aletheic and assertoric gazes ; see Levin , The 8 . Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, tr. G. E.M.
Opening if Vision, pp. 4 1 9-40. Anscombe, New York, 1 95 8 , pp. 1 26 (420), 1 78 .
8 1 . Plato, Theaetetus, 1 5 2 . 9 . Ibid. , p. 1 78 .
8 2 . Heidegger, "World Picture", p. 1 46 . 1 0. Ibid. , p . 2 1 3 .
8 3 . Heidegger, Being, p . 2 2 5 . 1 1 . Stanley Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say?, Cambridge, 1 969,
84. Ibid. , p . 226. p. 324.
85 . Ibid. , p. 2 3 1 . 1 2 . Stanley Cavell, The Claim ifReason, New York, 1 979, p. 42 1 .
86. Lukacs, History, p. 1 84. 1 3. Ibid. , p. 375 .
87. Ibid. , p. 1 79 . 14. Ibid. , p. 377.
88. Ibid. , p . 1 70 . 15. Lukacs, History, p. 1 69 .
16. Cavell, Claim, p . 377 .
1 7 . Lukacs reads the master-slave dialectic in terms of the Marxist
theory of alienation in The Young Hegel, tr. R . Livingstone,
London, 1 975 , pp. 3 1 9-37.
324 N o t e s to p p . 2 0 7 - 1 2
1 8 . See L. Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians, London, 1 959.
19. Quoted in P.A . Brunt, "Aristotle and Slavery" in Studies in
Greek History and Thounht, Oxford, 1 99 3 , p. 3 5 1 .
20. Aristotle, Politics, tr. H . Rackham, Cambridge, MA, 1 93 2 , p.
27 ( 1 255a 25-8) .
2 1 . Ibid . , p. 27 ( 1 255a 3 1 -2) .
2 2 . Ibid. , p . 1 7 ( 1 253b 3 3-9) .
2 3 . Ibid. , p. 2 3 ( 1 254b 25-6) .
24. Ibid. , p. 1 7 ( 1 254a 8-1 3).
2 5 . Ibid. , p. 29 ( 1 255b 1 1- 1 2 ) .
26. Ibid. , p . 23 ( 1 254b 27ff. ).
27. Ibid. , p. 63 ( 1 260a 1 2) .
28. Ibid. , p. 567 ( 1 327b 27-9).
29. Ibid. , p. 23 ( 1 254b 2 2-3) .
30. Ibid. , pp. 2 1 -3 ( 1 254b 1 5-20) .
3 1 . My analysis here follows that in R. Schlaifer, "Greek Theories
of Slavery from Homer to Aristotle", in M . I . Finley, ed. ,
Slavery in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge, 1 960, pp. 1 95ff.
3 2 . Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, tr. J.A. K . Thompson,
Harmondsworth, 1 976, p. 276 ( 1 1 60b 29-30).
3 3 . Aristotle, Politics, p. 2 1 ( 1 254b 4-5 ) .
34. Ibid. , p . 203 ( 1 278b 3 3ff. ) .
3 5 . Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, p . 9 0 ( 1 1 02b 34-5) .
3 6 . Aristotle, Politics, p . 6 7 ( 1 2 60b 5-7) .
37. Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, p. 278 ( 1 1 6 1 a 32-1 1 6 1 b 6) .
38. Aristotle, On the Soul, tr. W S . Hett, Cambridge, MA, 1 936,
p. 43 (407b 20ff.) .
39. Ibid. , p. 6 3 (4 1 t h 1 0) .
40 . Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, p . 275 ( 1 1 60a 36-1 1 60b 1 ) .
4 1 . Aristotle, Politics, p . 249 ( 1 285a 20ff.) .
42 . Ibid. , p . 327 ( 1 2 95a 2 3 ) .
Notes to pp. 2 1 3- 1 7 325
43 . Most recently by Steven B. Smith in "Hegel on Slavery and
Domination", Review if Metaphysics, 46 ( 1 992) pp. 97-1 24.
44. For example, C. Arthur, "Hegel's Master-Slave Dialectic and
a Myth of Marxology", New Lift Review, 1 42 ( 1 983) pp. 67-75 ;
P. Osborne, The Politics if Time, London, 1 995 , p. 72 .
45 . Die Politik des Aristotles, 2 vols, tr. C. von Garve, ed. with
notes by G.G. Fiilleborn, Breslau, 1 799-1 802 , vol. I ,
pp. 14, 1 8 , 5 8 .
46 . Ibid. , vol. II, p . 69.
47. "Eigene Gedanken iiber Sclaverei und Despotie", in ibid. , II,
pp. 1 35-65 .
48 . On Hegel's earlier use of Garve's works see H . S . Harris,
Henel's Development: Toward the Sunlinht, 1 770-1 801 , Oxford,
1 972, pp. 3 5-8, and L. Dickey, Henel: Reli9ion, Economics,
and the Politics if Spirit, 1 770-1 807, Cambridge, 1 987,
pp. 1 88-94.
49 . Aristotle, Politics, p. 65 ( 1 260a 34-1 260b 5 ) .
50. Die Politik, II, pp. 1 42-3 . (The translation i s by John Baildam. )
5 1 . Ibid. , p . 143.
52. G.WF. Hegel, PhenomenoloBY ifSpirit, tr. A.V. Miller, Oxford,
1 977 , p. 1 1 9 ( 1 96) .
5 3 . Ibid. , p. 1 1 8 ( 1 95 ) .
5 4 . G.WF. Hegel, Philosophy if Mind (Part III of the Encyclopaedia
if the Philosophical Sciences), tr. W Wallace and A.V. Miller,
Oxford, 1 97 1 , p. 1 74 (434Z) . Hereafter abbreviated as Enc.
III. The Zusatze are based on lecture notes used by Hegel or
taken by his students in courses for which the Encyclopaedia
was the textbook. Although not prepared for publication by
Hegel himself, they provide a good indication of the overall
structure of his thinking and the analogies he perceived
between it and other historical developments.
326 N o t e s to pp. 2 1 7-24 Notes to pp. 2 2 4- 3 2 327

5 5 . Ibid. , p. 1 75 (435Z) . 78 . Ibid. , pp. 1 1 3- 1 5 ( 1 87-9) . 1:

5 6 . G.WF. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, tr. 79. Ibid . , pp. 1 1 5- 1 6 ( 1 90) .
H . B. Nisbet, Cambridge, 1 975, p. 1 8 3 . 80. Ibid . , pp. 1 1 6- 1 7 ( 1 9 1 -2 ) .
57. Ibid . , p . 1 77. 81. Ibid. , pp. 1 1 7-1 8 ( 1 94--5 ) .
5 8 . Ibid. , p. 1 8 3 ; cf. Aristotle, Politics, p. 7 ( 1 25 2b 5ff. ) . 82 . Ibid. , p . 1 1 8 ( 1 96) .
59. Ibid. , p. 1 8 2 ; cf. Aristotle, Politics, p. 249 ( 1 285a 20ff. ) . 8 3 . Ibid . , pp. 1 1 9-20 ( 1 97).
60 . For the historical background see R . Blackburn, The Overthrow 84. G.W F. Hegel, System of Ethical Life and First Philosophy of
ofColonial Slavery, 1 776-1 848, London, 1 98 8 . Spirit, tr. H . S . Harris and T. M . Knox, Albany, NY, 1 979,
6 1 . Hegel, LPWH, p. 1 84. p. 1 2 5 .
62 . Hegel, Enc. III, p. 92 (402Z) . 8 5 . Hegel, The Philosophical Propaedeutic, tr. A . V. Miller, Oxford,
63. Ibid. , p. 1 46 (41 0Z) . 1 986, p. 62 (3 5-6).
64. Die Politik, I, p . 1 9 . 86. Hegel, System, p. 1 26 .
65 . Hegel, Enc. III, p . 144 (41 0Z) . 8 7 . Hegel, Enc. III, p . 1 74 (434) .
66 . Ibid. , p. 1 76 (436). 88. Ibid. , p. 1 75 (435).
67. Hegel, LPWH, p. 1 84. 89. Hegel, Propaedeutic, p. 62 (36).
68 . Ibid. , p. 1 77. 90. Hegel, Enc. III, p. 1 75 (435Z).
69. Ibid. , p. 1 78 ; Enc. III, p. 1 65 (424Z) . 9 1 . Hegel, Propaedeutic, p. 62 (36).
70 . Ibid. , p. 1 76 (436Z) . 92. Hegel, System, p. 1 25 .
7 1 . Ibid. , p. 1 74 (43 3Z) . 9 3 . Aristotle, On the Soul, p. 87 (4 1 5b 9).
72 . Ibid . , p. 43 (393Z) . D.B. Davis relates this event to the 94. Hegel, Propaedeutic, p. 62 (35) .
master-slave dialectic in The Problem of Slavery in the Age of 95 . C . A . F. Kluge, Versuch einer Darstellung des animalischen
Revolution, 1 770-1 823, Ithaca, NY, 1 975 , pp. 557-64. Magnetismus, als Heilmittel, Berlin, 1 8 1 5 . A list of references is
7 3 . There is a huge secondary literature on the dialectic. Some of given in the index, p. 475 .
the best known readings are gathered in J. O'Neill, ed. , Hegel's 96. Hegel, Enc. III, p. 1 04 (406) .
Dialectic ofDesire and Recognition, Albany, NY, 1 996. 97. Ibid. , p. 1 1 6 (406Z) .
74. G.A. Kelly, "Notes on Hegel's ' Lordship and Bondage'", 98. Ibid. , p. 95 (405).
Review ofMetaphysics, 19 ( 1 966), p. 784. See also J. Royce, The 99. Ibid. , p. 97 (405Z) .
Spirit ofModern Philosophy, Boston, MA, 1 892, pp. 209ff. 1 00. P.F. von Walther, Physiologie des Menschen, 2 vols, Landshut,
75 . Hegel, Phenomenology, p. 1 1 2 ( 1 82). 1 807-8 , vol. II, p. 363.
76. Ibid. , p. 1 1 1 ( 1 78). 1 0 1 . Hegel discusses this possibility in Enc. III, p. 1 2 1 (406Z) .
77 . Ibid. , p. 1 1 3 ( 1 86) . 1 02 . Walther, Physiologie, II, p. 363.

328 N o t e s to pp. 2 3 2-4 1
1 0 3 . Hegel, Enc. III, pp. 1 09-1 0 (406Z).
1 04. Ibid . , p. 1 1 0 (406Z) .
1 0 5 . Ibid. , p. 1 03 (406); PhenomenoloBJ', p. 1 1 7 ( 1 93).
1 06. Hegel, PhenomenoloBJ', p. 1 1 7 ( 1 94) .
1 07. Hegel, Enc. III, p. 1 09 (406Z); cf. p. l OS (406).
108. Hegel, Propaedeutic, p. 63 (38) .
1 09. Hegel, PhenomenoloBJ', p. 1 20 ( 1 97) .
1 1 0. Ibid. , p. 1 26 (206 and 207).
1 1 1 . Hegel, Propaedeutic, p. 63 (38).
1 1 2 . Hegel, Enc. III, p. 1 76 (436) .
1 1 3 . Ibid . , p. 1 77 (436Z).
1 1 4. Aristotle, Politics, p. 2 1 3 ( 1 2 80a 3 2) .
1 1 5 . Quoted in A. Crabtree, From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and
the Roots ifPsychological Healing, New Haven, CT, 1 993, p. 42 .
Although it pays little attention to the early nineteenth-cen­
tury German sources, Crabtree's is the best available history of
animal magnetism and its relationship to double consciousness
and multiple personality.
1 1 6 . C.A. von Eschenmayer, Versuch die scheinbare Magie des
thierischen Magnetismus . . . , Vienna, 1 8 1 6 , pp. 57, 56.
1 1 7. Hegel, Enc. III, p. 1 03 (406).
1 1 8 . Ibid. , p. 1 04 (406).
1 1 9 . R. Darn ton, Mesmerism and the End if the Enlightenment in
France, Cambridge, MA, 1 968 .
1 20. W E .B. Du Bois, The Souls ifBlack Folk, New York, 1 989, p. 5 .
1 2 1 . The best and most recent study, which contains references to
all the earlier literature, is S. Zarnir, Dark Voices: W.E.B. Du Bois
and American Thought, 1 888-1903, Chicago, 1 995 .
1 2 2 . This is Zamir's approach in Dark Voices, pp. 1 1 3ff. Zamir pro­
vides much valuable information on Du Bois's interest in
Hegel and on nineteenth-century American Hegelianism, but
r
f
Notes to pp. 2 4 1 -8 329 I
ignores the Encyclopaedia and so does not note the parallels
between Hegel and Du Bois discussed below.
1 2 3 . Du Bois, Souls, p. 1 70.
1 24. Ibid. , pp. 1 64-5 .
1 2 5 . Hegel, Enc. III, p. 1 76 (436).
1 26. Cavell, Claim, p. 377 .
1 27. Du Bois, Souls, p. 1 78 . On Du Bois's identification of
Crummell's personal odyssey with emancipation from slavery
see E.J. Sundquist, To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making if
American Literature, Cambridge, MA, 1 99 3, p. 5 1 8 .
1 28. Although it may therefore be true that the condition of double
consciousness is experienced more acutely in proportion to
the extent of integration into white society, there seems little
basis for Zarnir's claim that double consciousness is confined to
a black middle-class elite (Dark Voices, p. 1 1 6).
1 29 . W Gregory, Letters to a Candid Enquirer on Animal Magnetism,
London, 1 85 1 , p. 78.
1 30. Hegel, Enc. III, p. 1 03 (406). Wallace's translation was first
published in 1 894 and would therefore have been available to
Du Bois.
131. Ibid. , p. 1 1 2 (406Z) . The Zusatze were not translated by
Wallace, but were included in the collected German edition of
1 845 which Du Bois, who spent two years in Berlin, would
have been quite capable of reading.
1 32 . Ibid. , p. 1 1 3 (406Z) .
1 3 3 . Pauline Hopkins, OJ One Blood; or, The Hidden Se!f ( 1 902-3),
repr. London, 1 996. W James, "The Hidden Self", in Essays in
PsycholoB.Y, Cambridge, 1 98 3 , p. 262 . On the background see
T.J. Otten, "Pauline Hopkins and the Hidden Self of Race",
English Literary History, 59 ( 1 992) pp. 227-56.
3 30 N ote s to pp. 2 5 7-6 5 Notes to pp. 2 65-70 331 r
I,
C h ap ter 7 L iv ing in Hiding : 19. Ibid. , p . 209.
T h e M ul ti p le S elf 20. Ibid. , p. 1 5 2 .
21. Taylor, "Interpretation", p . 47.
1 . C. Taylor, Sources cif the Self The Making cif the Modern Identity, 22. F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, tr. W Kaufmann, New
Cambridge, MA, 1 989. York, 1 956, 244 (references to Nietzsche's works are to sec­
2. A . Macintyre, Afier Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, London, tions, not page numbers) . The quotation "two souls . . ." is I
1 98 1 , p. 2 2 . from Goethe 's Faust. I

I
3 . Taylor, Sources, p . 5 . 2 3 . Ibid. , 260.
4. Ibid. , p. 34. 24. F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy cifMorals, tr. D. Smith, Oxford,
5 . Ibid. , p. 3 5 . 1 996, 1 . 1 1 .
6. Macintyre, Afier Virtue, p. 205 .
7. Taylor, Sources, p. 50.
2 5 . Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 257.
26. Ibid. , 2 5 8 .
I
!

8. Macintyre, Afier Virtue, pp. 1 9 1 , 203 . 27. Nietzsche, Genealogy, 1. 1 6 .

9 . Taylor, Sources, p. 5 1 . 28. Du Bois, Souls, p . 5 .
:11 ,,

1 0 . See K . Miller, Doubles, Oxford, 1 98 5 , and I . Hacking,
Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences cifMemory,
Princeton, NJ, 1 995 .
1 1 . W.E .B. Du Bois, The Souls cif Black Folk, New York, 1 989,
pp. 1 65 , 5 .
1 2 . David Levering Lewis, WE.B. Du Bois: Biography cif a Race,
1 863-1 91 9, New York, 1 99 3 , p. 96.
1 3 . Ibid. , p. 1 99 . See also E .J. Sundquist, To Wake the Nations: Race
in the Making cif American Literature, Cambridge, MA, 1 99 3 ,
and P. Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double
Consciousness, London, 1 99 3 .
1 4. M. Griffiths, Feminisms and the Self, London, 1 995, p . 1 8 1 .
1 5 . Idem.
1 6 . C. Taylor, "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man", Review cif
Metaphysics, 2 5 ( 1 97 1 ) , p. 47 .
1 7 . Taylor, Sources, p. 69 .
1 8 . Macintyre, Afier Virtue, p. 205 .
29. Despite the fact that both are independently recognised to
have been responding to Hegel, the comparison between
Nietzsche and Du Bois awaits serious exploration. However,
the contrast should not be overstated: Nietzsche acknowl­
edges the creativity of slave morality; Du Bois idealises
aristocracy within his own racial community.
30. F. Nietzsche, Daybreak, tr. R.J. Hollingdale, Cambridge, 1 982,
1 37.
31. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 260.
32. Ibid. , 264.
33. Nietzsche, Genealogy, 1 . 1 0; Beyond Good and Evil, 260.
34. Nietzsche, Genealogy, 1 . 1 0 .
3 5 . Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 2 1 2 .
36. F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, tr. W. Kaufmann and
R.J. Hollingdale, New York, 1 967, 778 .
37. F. Nietzsche, Twilight cif the Idols, tr. R.J. Hollingdale,
Harmondsworth, 1 968, 49 .
 1)

I
332 Notes to pp. 270-80 Notes to pp. 2 80-92 333

38. See W Kaufmann, Nietzsche, 4th edn, Princeton, NJ, 1 974, I 53. "Song of Myself" 3 3 , in ibid. , p. 63.
pp. 38 2-4. 54. "Song of Occupations" 2 , in ibid . , pp. 1 96-7 .
39. Macintyre, Afier Virtue, p. 240. 55. "Song of Myself" 1 6 , in ibid. , p. 41 .
40. F. Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, tr. M. Faber and 56. Ibid. , 24, p. 49 .
S. Lehmann, Harmondsworth, 1 994, 45 . 57. Ibid. , 5 1 , p. 84.
41 . Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 260. 58. On the last of these see P. Cavalieri and P. Singer, The Great Ape
42 . C. Lemert, "Dark Thoughts about the Self", in C. Calhoun, Project, New York, 1 993.
ed. , Social Theory and the Politics 1 Identity, Oxford, 1 994, 59. Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV. 1 65-72 .
p. 1 02 . 60. Quoted in J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, London, 1 982,
43 . A . Gutmann, ed. , Multiculturalism, Princeton, NJ, 1 994, p. 8 . p. 1 03 .
44. C . Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition" in ibid. , p . 3 8 . 6 1 . Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV.459-6 1 .
45 . W Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford, 1 995 , p . 1 74. 62 . W Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism,
46 . For Kymlicka's criticisms of the communitarian self see Cambridge, MA, 1 972 , p. 1 80.
W Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, Oxford, 63. John Rawls, A Theory 1Justice, Oxford, 1 972, p. 1 37.
1 989, pp. 47-99. 64. Ibid. , p. 1 20 . On the relationship between Rawls's scenario
47. Speech on 3 Sept. 1 948 , in E . H . Brookes, ed . , Apartheid: A and the imagery of hiddenness, see G.A. Kelly, "Veils: the
Documentary Study 1 Modern South Africa, London, 1 96 8 , Poetics of John Rawls", journal 1the History 1/deas, 57 ( 1 996),
PP· 7-8 . pp. 343-64.
48 . Ibid. , p. 1 3 .
49 . For example by R.M. Hare, "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity
in South Africa", The Philosophical Forum, 1 8 ( 1 986-7) , p. 1 62 . E p ilogue
5 0 . But see J . H . Carens, "Aliens and Citizens: the Case for Open
Borders", in R. Beiner, ed. , Theorizing Citizenship, Albany, NY, 1. Z. Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, Cambridge, 1 99 1 , pp.
1 995 , pp. 229-5 3 . 4--6 .
5 1 . E . Gellner argues that the nation state actually serves to pre­ 2 . Ibid . , p. 98.
vent a global apartheid (Thought and Change, London, 1 964,
pp. 1 77-8), but it would perhaps be more accurate to say that
the world of nation states realises the goals of apartheid more
fully than the old South Africa ever did.
52 . Walt Whitman, "I Sing the Body Electric" 7, in Complete Poetry,
London, 1 97 1 , p. 9 3 .

j_
 Index
Abel 75
symbolic colour 89, 90
Abraham, Testament of
(apocryphal) 75
Abrams, M.H. 80
Acts of the Apostles
Peter's vision 72, 8 3
The Advancement rif Learnin9 (Bacon)
1 2 1 -2
After Virtue (Macintyre) 270
"The Age of the World Picture"
(Heidegger) 1 72-3, 1 76,
1 93--4
Anderson, Perry 1 54
Antiochus Epiphanes 1 20
Aristotle
contradictions 54-5
De Anima 2 1 1 , 2 1 2-1 3
division between slave and free
2 36-9
the great-souled man of Nietzsche
270
and Hegel's ideas of slavery
2 1 7-22
Metaphysics 5 3
Politics 207, 2 1 3- 1 6
on slavery 207- 1 6
social contradictions o f slavery
261
soul-body framework o f slavery
2 2 8-30
texts interwoven with reality of
slavery 248-5 1
virtue of slaves 265
Austin, J.L. 7-1 0
Bacon, Francis
The Advancement l![Learnin9 1 2 1-2
the Manna lnstauratio 1 22--4
Barthes, Roland 1 70

336 Index
Baruch, Book of (apocryphal) 70
messianic kingdom 79-80
Bataille, Georges 1 53
totalities 1 70
Bauman, Zygmunt 292
Modernity and Ambivalence 41 -3
Beauvoir, Simone de 248
Being and Nothingness (Sartre) 1 70
Being and Time (Heidegger) 1 82, 1 94
Benjamin, Walter
the angel of history and
redemption 1 56--6 1
and Kant 141-3, 1 44, 146-9
Kojeve 1 55--6
on Kraus 146-7
messianic cessation 149-52
"Theses on the Philosophy of
History" 141-4
Berlin, Brent
colour terminology 88
Berlin, Isaiah 1 54
Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche)
266-7 1
Blindspots (Sorensen) 3 2
Blumenberg, Hans 1 22
The Legitimacy if the Modern Age
1 1 6-- 1 9
Bossuet, Jacques Benigne
Discours sur l'histoire universelle 144
Bryan, David 72
Burridge, Kenelm
millenarians in Polynesia and
Melanesia 69-70
Cain
symbolic colour 89
Cavell, Stanley 2 1-2
T
Index 337
de-alienation of the world 25 3 Descartes, Rene 1 82 Esau
dissolution of slavery 242-3 Deuteronomy, Book of 7 1 symbolic colour 89
others' identity 279 Dietzgen, Joseph 1 52 Euripides
soul-blindness 204-7 Discours sur I'histoire universelle Phoenician Women 75
Celine, Louis-Ferdinand 68 (Bossuet) 144 The Excursion (Wordsworth) 1 0--- 1 2
Cendrars, B. 1 59 Dostoevsky, Fyodor Expositio in Apocalypsim (Joachim of
Moravagine 145 The Possessed 145-6, 1 5 8 , Fiore) 1 33
Chouraqui, Andre 93 1 59-60
Critique if Practical Reason (Kant) 1 05 Douglas, Mary The Faerie Qyeene (Spenser) 2-7
Critique ifPure Reason (Kant) 1 0 1 , 128 Purity and Danger 61-2 Fanon, Frantz 248
Bacon's Magna /nstauratio 1 23-4 Downcast Eyes (Jay) 1 69-73 Filo, leader of Papuan cult 70
Crummell, Alexander 243 Du Bois, WE.B. 29 1 Foucault, Michel
acceptance of double identities totalities 1 70
Daniel, Book of 7 1 , 72, 80, 84 274, 282 France, Anatole
increase in knowledge 1 22-3 de-alienation of the world 253-4 La Revolte des anges 1 43-4, 1 58
Maldonado on 1 20 double consciousness of the
sacrifice 74 African American 240-48 Garve, Christian von 2 1 3-16
Darnton, Robert 239 and Nietzsche 266-8 Gathas (Zoroaster) 73
Davidson, Donald 1 83, 1 96 "Of the Passing of the Firstborn" Girard, Rene
interpretation and perception 241 and Kristeva 66--7
1 88-92 self 261-3 mimetic crisis and apocalyptic
"On the Very Idea of a texts interwoven with reality of literature 74-7
Conceptual Scheme" 1 74-7, slavery 248-50 theory of sacrifice 62--6
1 77-80 Dumont, Louis 57 Godel, Kurt 38
Daybreak (Nietzsche) 268 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 270
De Anima (Aristotle) 2 1 1 , 2 1 2- 1 3 Education if the Human Race (Lessing) the primal plant 1 30
D e Docta Ignorantia (Nicholas of 1 1 6, 1 1 8-20 The Golden Legend (Jacobus de
Cusa) 28 Empedocles 284 Voragine) 65--6
De Visione Dei (Nicholas of Cusa) Encyclopaedia ifthe Philosophical Goldmann, Lucien 1 72 , 175, 1 8 1
29-3 1 Sciences (Hegel) 1 06, 2 1 7, Gregory, William 244
Delacroix, Ferdinand Victor Eugene 2 1 8-2 1 , 228, 234 Griffiths, Morwenna 263
143 "The End of All Things" (Kant) Gutmann, Amy
Derrida, Jacques 1 38-41 , 144, 146-9 individual/ communal recognition
apocalyptic language 72, 92-4 Enoch, First Book of 72, 75--6 272
"Plato 's Pharmacy" 94-7 animal apocalypse 85-8
totalities 1 70 "Book of Dreams" 98-9 Hallpike, C.R. 53, 54
the undecidable 38-41 symbolic colour 89 Harris, H.S. 1 30
338 Index Index 339

Hebrews, Book of
crucifixion and sacrifice 74
Hegel, Georg W F.
apocalyptic thinking 1 1 2- 1 6
Aristotle, slavery and African
slaves 2 1 7-2 2
contradiction 38--40, 5 5 , 5 8 ,
1 00- 1 0 2 , 1 2 5-3 1
de-alienation of the world 2 5 2-3
and Du Bois 240--48
Encyclopaedia <j the Philosophical
Sciences 1 06, 2 1 7 , 2 1 8-2 1 ,
2 2 8 , 2 34
finite/infinite 1 02-5
humanity of slaves 2 5 2-3
the infinite 57
Joachite themes 1 3 3-5
on Kantian infinite progress
1 04--5 , 1 09-1 0
Lectures on the History <j Philosophy
1 10
magnetism in master-slave
dialectic 2 28-34, 2 3 8-9, 244
master and slave 1 5 1 , 1 5 2-5,
206-7, 2 1 3- 1 4
others' identity 279
outcome of master-slave dialectic
2 34--9
PhenomenoloBY <j Spirit 40, 1 5 1 ,
217
Philosophical Propaedeutic 2 1 7 , 2 34
Philosophy <j Mind 230, 244
The Positivity <j the Christian
Religion 1 2 8
progress 1 1 6, 1 1 8 , 294
The Science <ifLogic 1 24--5 , 1 26,
1 29
second sight 244--6
self 2 6 1 -2 , 263
self-consciousness 2 2 2-8
The Spirit <if Christianity 1 2 5-6,
1 28-9, 1 30
System <jEthical Life 2 2 6-7, 229
texts interwoven with reality of
slavery 248-5 1
world history 1 09- 1 1 , 1 1 3
Heidegger, Martin 1 96-7
"The Age of the World Picture"
1 72-3, 1 76 , 1 9 3--4
apprehending the ready-to-hand
1 8 1 -6, 1 87-8, 200
aspect perception 1 87-8
Being and Time 1 82 , 1 94
the manifold 1 93-6
Rorty' s discussion 1 75-7
"The Hidden Self" (James) 248
Hopkins, Pauline
OJ One Blood; or, The Hidden Self
248
"Interpretation and the Sciences of
Man" (Taylor) 264
Jacob
symbolic colour 89
Jacobson-Widding, Anita 55-6
symbolic colour 8 8-9
Jacobus de Voragine
The Golden Legend 65-6
James, William
"The Hidden Self" 248
Jastrow, Joseph 2 1 , 2 8
Jay, Martin
Downcast Eyes 1 69-73
Jay, Martin (cont.)
Marxism and Totality 1 69-73
Rorty's influence 1 73
Jesus Christ 65-6
sacrifice to end sacrifice 73--4
Joachim of Fiore 1 20-2 1 , 1 2 3 ,
2 94
influence on Hegel 1 3 3-5
Trinity's three trees in Liber
Concordiae 1 3 1 -2
two tree eagles of Liber Figurarum
1 3 1 -2
Jubilees, Book of (apocryphal) 70,
76
Enoch's "Book of Dreams" 98-9
Judas Iscariot 65-6
Le Jugement du Roy de Navarre
(Machaut) 65
Jiinger, Ernst
Der Waldgang 1 5 8
Kant, Immanuel 9 3
antinomies 1 0 1-2
Bacon's Magna lnstauratio 1 2 3--4
and Benjamin 1 4 1 -3 , 1 49-5 2
Critique <j Practical Reason 1 05
Critique <jPure Reason 10 1 , 1 2 8
crooked timber 1 5 3--4
"The End of All Things" 144,
1 46-9
finite/ infinite 1 03--4
Hegel argues 1 04--5 , 1 09-1 0,
1 1 4, 1 27-8
infinite progress 1 04, 1 05-8,
1 1 6 , 1 44
and Joachim 1 34--5
Religion within the Limits <j Reason
Alone 1 06 , 1 2 8 , 140
"The End of All Things"
1 3 8--4 1
Kay, Paul
colour terminology 8 8
Kelly, G . A . 2 2 2
Kermode, Frank 8 3
Klee, Paul 143
Angelus Novus 142, 1 47
Kluge, C.A.F. 2 30
Kojeve, Alexandre
Hegel's master and slave 1 5 2-5 ,
161
Kraus, Karl 1 57 , 1 59
"Prayer to the Sun at Gibeon"
1 46-7
Kristeva, Julia
Powers <jHorror 60-6 1 , 68-9
sacrifice and taboo 66-7
Kuhn, Thomas S.
paradigm shifts 1 88-9
Kymlicka, Will
Multicultural Citizenship 2 74-6
Lacan, Jacques
totalities 1 70
Leach, Edmund 62
Lectures on the History <jPhilosophy
(Hegel) 1 1 0
Lectures on the Philosophy <jHistory
(Hegel) 2 1 7
The Legitimacy <j the Modern Age
(Blumenberg) 1 1 6- 1 9
Lemert, Charles
self-identity 2 7 1
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 1 24
Education <j the Human Race 1 1 6,
340 Index Index 341

1 1 8-20, 1 33 revolution 1 56-7, 1 60 1 77-80 Pope, Alexander 25

Levi-Strauss, Claude Marxism and Totality Qay) 1 69-73 O 'Regan, Cyril 1 1 2 The Positivity if the Christian Religion
binarity 54, 5 5 , 56 Mead, Margaret 50 Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Hegel) 1 28
parts and the whole 64 Melchizedek 76 Metamorphoses 284, 285 The Possessed (Dostoevsky) 145-6,
Leviticus, Book of 6 1-2, 67-8, 7 1 Metamorphoses (Ovid) 284, 285 1 58 , 1 59-60
Liber Concordiae Qoachim of Fiore) Metaphysics (Aristotle) 5 3 Parfit, Derek 261 Postel, Guillaume 1 22-3
1 3 1 -2 Mishnah 90 Pascal, Blaise 3 1 Powers ifHorror (Kristeva) 60-6 1 ,
Liber Figurarum Qoachim of Fiore) Modernity and Ambivalence (Bauman) St Peter 68-9
1 3 1-2 41-3 the end of all things 1 37 "Prayer to the Sun at Gibeon"
Lloyd, G.E.R. 52 Moravagine (Cendrars) 145 vision 72, 83 (Kraus) 1 46-7
Liiwith, Karl 1 12 Mulhall, Stephen 1 8 1 , 1 86, Phaedrus (Plato) 94-7 Priest, Graham 33-5
debate with Blumenberg 1 16 1 96 Phenomenology '![Spirit (Hegel) 40, contradictions 55
Lukacs, Georg 3 0--40 , 291 aspect perception 1 87, 200 151, 217 on Hegel's infinite 57
anti-visual holism 1 80-8 1 , 1 99 Multicultural Citizenship (Kymlicka) Philebus (Plato) 95 Protagoras (Plato) 95, 193--4
aspects of processes 1 95-6 274-6 Philosophical Propaedeutic (Hegel) Purity and Danger (Douglas) 6 1 -2
de-alienation of labour 249-50 Musil, Robert 2 1 7, 234 "The Purloined Letter" (Poe) 1 4-16
Goldmann couples with The Man without Qyalities 8 1-2 Philosophy and the Mirror if Nature Puysegur 238
Heidegger
1 75-7 (Rorty) Pythagorean school 211
and Heidegger 1 80-8 1 , 1 8 3 Nathirikaumoli and Nakausambaria anti-visualism 1 7 3-7 transmigration of souls and
knowledge 1 88, 1 9 3 76 Philosophy if Mind (Hegel) 230, 244 vegetarianism 284-7
"Reification and the Needham, Rodney 50-5 1 Phoenician Women (Euripides) 75
Consciousness of the Nicholas of Cusa 35 Physiologie des Menschen (Walther) Quine, Willard Van Orman
Proletariat" 1 77, 1 97-8, coincidentia oppositorum 3 9--40 23 1-2 charitable interpretation 1 89
1 99-200, 205-6 De Docta Ignorantia 28 Pisistratus 21 7, 2 1 8
totality 1 69, 1 7 1 De Visione Dei 29-3 1 Plato Rawls, John 29 1 , 294
Nietzsche, Friedrich Phaedrus 94-7 justice and the veil of ignorance
Machaut, Guillaume de Beyond Good and Evil 266- Philebus 95 286-90
Le Jugement du Roy de Navarre 65 71 Protagoras 95, 193-5 "Reification and the Consciousness
Macintyre, Alisdair Daybreak 268 Symposium 81-2 of the Proletariat" (Lukacs)
After Virtue 270 unified identity
280 Theaetetus 1 9 3--4 1 77-80, 1 97-8 , 199-200,
the moral self 257 Norris, Christopher 92 Timaeus 95 205-6
Nietzsche or Aristotle? 270 Plotinus Religion within the Limits '![Reason
Maldonado, Juan de 1 20 Oedipus 65-6 cyclical pattern of unity 80-8 1 Alone (Kant) 1 06, 1 28, 1 40
The Man without Qyalities (Musil) 8 1-2 OJ One Blood; or, The Hidden Self Poe, Edgar Allan Revelation, Book of 72, 84
Marx, Karl (Hopkins) 248 "The Purloined Letter" 14-1 5 the end 1 36, 1 38--40
Hegel's master and slave 248 "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Politics (Aristotle) 2 1 3-16 La Revolte des anges (France) 143--4,
master and slave 151 Scheme" (Davidson) 1 74-7, slavery 207-1 3 158
342 Index

Robespierre, Maximilien 1 56-7 the moral self 257, 269

Rorty, Richard 1 96 Tcherkezoff, Serge 54, 57-8
anti-visualism 1 73-7, 1 80--8 1 Tertullian, Quintus Septimus
Philosophy and the Mirror if Nature Florens 1 3 1
1 73-7 Thamus 94-5
Rowland, Christopher 72 Theaetetus (Plato) 19 3-4
heavenly secrets 83 "Theses on the Philosophy of
Royce, Josiah 2 2 2 History" (Benjamin) 1 4 1 -4
Ryle, Gilbert 1 9 Theuth 94-5 , 98
Timaeus (Plato) 95
Sabbatai Zevi 69 Tsek, leader of Naked Cult 70
Sartre, Jean-Paul Twisse, William 1 2 3
disgust of slime 5 8-60, 6 1
totalities 1 70 Verwoerd, Dr Hendrik F. 276-7
Scholem, Gershom 1 42 Vision ifR. Abraham 69
Sabbatai Zevi 69
The Science ifLogic (Hegel) 1 24-5 , Der Waldgang Qiinger) 1 58
1 26, 1 29 Walther, P. F. von
"Song of Myself" (Whitman) Physiologie des Menschen 2 3 1-2
2 80--8 2 Watts, Isaac 1 60
Sorensen, Roy 34, 37, 1 90 The World to Come 1 36-8
Blindspots 3 2 Whitman , Walt 2 9 1
Spenser, Edmund "Song of Myself" 280--8 2
The Faerie Qyeene 2-7 Whorf, Benjamin 50
The Spirit if Christianity (Hegel) Wittgenstein, Ludwig 29, 1 96
1 25�, 1 2 8-9, 1 30 aspect perception 1 86-8,
Staal, Fritz 5 3 200--2 0 1 , 202-3
Symposium (Plato) 8 1-2 Wordsworth, William
System if Ethical Life (Hegel) 2 2 6-7, The Excursion 1 0-- 1 2
229 The World to Come (Watts)
"The End of Time" 1 36-8
Taylor, Charles Worsley, Peter
individual! communal polarity on cults 70
272, 276
"Interpretation and the Sciences Zoroaster 73-4
of Man" 264 Gathas 73