An Introduction to HEGEL'S PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT—

complete, in 9 Lectures and 36 Videos

Lecture 1: INTRODUCTION. https://youtu.be/BQp-6J29fcM ................................................ page 2

Lecture 2: “A: CONSCIOUSNESS.” https://youtu.be/tIShjowllag ……………………………….......... page 8
Lecture 3: “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.” https://youtu.be/tMeX6JFp9nc ............................ page 20
Lecture 4: “C: (AA) REASON (A).” https://youtu.be/iZ6K53ZiGyA ……………………….……........ page 28
Lecture 5: “C: (AA) REASON (B) & (C).” https://youtu.be/ydSP6L6yVWw …………..……........ page 39
Lecture 6: “C: (BB) SPIRIT (A) & (B).” https://youtu.be/9AQ1hUUXigA ………….……….......... page 50
Lecture 7: “C: (BB) SPIRIT (C).” https://youtu.be/jYS92yNmz8o …………………………….…....... page 62
Lecture 8: “C: (CC) RELIGION (A) (B) & (C).” https://youtu.be/IefYzwZvgME ……………......... page 73
Lecture 9: “C (DD) ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.” https://youtu.be/jOdntVYil7E …………......….. page 84
BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….…… page 95

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 Lecture 1
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – INTRODUCTION
https://youtu.be/BQp-6J29fcM

Welcome! I’m Ken Foldes of St. John’s University, and We are teaching the complete System of
Hegel’s Philosophical or ABSOLUTE SCIENCE — The Introduction, The Science of Logic, The
Science of Nature, and The Science of Spirit (or Mind). The Introduction to Absolute Science or
PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT that we will be teaching in this module is the First science of
Hegel’s System.
The purpose of these Lectures is to provide you with the basic tools that will enable you to
understand Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. The module will contain 9 LECTURES with 4 parts
to each lecture. LECTURE ONE, today’s lecture, will be an Introduction and Overview, including
Hegel’s famous “Introduction” to the Phenomenology; LECTURE TWO will treat “A:
CONSCIOUSNESS”; LECTURE THREE “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS”; LECTURE FOUR “C: AA: REASON:
A: Observing Reason”; LECTURE FIVE “C: AA: REASON: B: Active Reason and C: Practical Reason”;
LECTURE SIX “C: BB: SPIRIT: A: True Spirit and B: Self-Alienated Spirit”; LECTURE SEVEN “C: BB:
SPIRIT: C: Spirit Certain of Itself”; LECTURE EIGHT “C: CC: RELIGION: A: Natural Religion, B:
Religion in the Form of Art, and C: The Revealed Religion”; and lastly LECTURE NINE “C: DD:
ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.
Today’s topics will be, ONE, What is ABSOLUTE SCIENCE and How was it discovered? TWO, A
brief overview of the Phenomenology of Spirit. And THREE, Hegel’s “Introduction” to the
Phenomenology.

ONE: WHAT IS ABSOLUTE SCIENCE AND HOW WAS IT DISCOVERED IN OUR HISTORY?
https://youtu.be/5QQO22CBM8M
-- Absolute Science is simply the Science of the Absolute, i.e. Being’s or the Universe’s
Knowledge of itself. This means that there is only ONE REALITY – that Reality is absolutely ONE.
Hence the Universe and History is simply the One Reality, the Absolute, becoming conscious of
Itself (in and through us).
-- Absolute Science has 4 Parts: The INTRODUCTION (or Phenomenology of Spirit), which takes
one out of PLATO’S CAVE (of appearance and illusion) into Absolute Knowledge, the absolute
standpoint of SCIENCE and the CONCEPT; THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC (of the Principle of all things);
and the two Real Sciences, THE SCIENCE OF NATURE and THE SCIENCE OF SPIRIT – LOGIC’S
Principle or Arche ACTUALIZED.
-- In sum: We first have the CONCEPT as pure THOUGHT in LOGIC, and then – because of
POLARITY or the UNITY-OF-OPPOSITES – or because you cannot have One, THOUGHT, the INNER,
without the other – Thought’s Opposite – we necessarily and immediately have NATURE, the

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OUTER, externality, extension, or the CONCEPT outside of itself, as Space, Time, and Matter —
then finally the UNITY of the Opposites, Thought and Nature, SPIRIT or ourselves, the CONCEPT
returned into Itself and fully ACTUALIZED, what our religions call “GOD and KINGDOM COME.”
PHILOSOPHY, the genesis of Absolute Science, began in the ANCIENT Period with the Greeks –
with the search for the ARCHE, the eternal principle of everything: that is, in 600BC with THALES’
teaching that “Everything is Water” (Water being Thales’ ARCHE), i.e. only One thing exists,
having no beginning and no end. With PLATO, The Republic, and the Divided LINE, where the
CAVE is “meaningless illusion,” we have as Plato’s ARCHE, the GOOD, which is “the ground and
cause of everything.” While with ARISTOTLE the ARCHE is the Unmoved Mover, i.e. GOD as
“eternal Self-thinking THOUGHT.” HOWEVER, the Greeks reached only an Objective ARCHE –
one outside themselves, not a Subjective ARCHE, one inside themselves.
During the MEDIEVAL Period of Theology “GOD” was the ARCHE, One and Infinite, however
existing outside us and Objective – hence, duality and separation prevailed, and no UNITY. — We
then advanced from Augustine and Aquinas, TO the Renaissance and Reformation, TO the
MODERN Period of SUBJECTIVITY, where Philosophy comes to an end with ABSOLUTE SCIENCE;
which began with DESCARTES’ 1641 Meditations and his famous “turn to the SUBJECT and
Consciousness away from the OBJECT” – and his declaration: “I think, therefore I AM” –meaning
that Consciousness and Being are ONE and inseparable (cf., “Before Abraham was,
I AM”). BUT Descartes reached only a FINITE I or CONSCIOUSNESS (because he posited entities
OUTSIDE the Cogito), whereas the GERMAN IDEALISTS reached an INFINITE or ABSOLUTE I, that
is, a SELF or COGITO as ALL REALITY.
In brief: Absolute Science began with KANT’S 1781 Critique of Pure Reason and his discovery of
Space and Time (as grounded in ourselves) and the “Transcendental UNITY of Apperception,”
that is, “self-grounded Self-Consciousness” – which FICHTE renamed the “Absolute I,” the true
ARCHE of Absolute Science, which is “all that ever was, is, and will be.” Fichte also added a
Transcendental Idealism or Science of SPIRIT. SCHELLING’S contribution to scientific philosophy
was the Philosophy or Science of NATURE, while HEGEL’S singular achievement was an
INTRODUCTION to SCIENCE and a Science of LOGIC – the “Absolute I” becoming the “Absolute
CONCEPT,” the one true ARCHE. – The CONCEPT being the fulfilment and realization of
ARISTOTLE’S “God as noesis noeseos or the Thought of Thought.”

TWO: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT. https://youtu.be/mTaxypo1ezg

Hegel’s Phenomenology is best described as the journey above PLATO’S Divided Line, out of the
Cave of illusion – from sense-individuals, to representations, to thought-universals, finally to the
ONE ABSOLUTE CONCEPT, which alone is Reality. The main Goal is the Absolute Concept,
Absolute Knowledge, and the Logic of Absolute Science; a second Goal, as we’ll see, is “Reich
Gottes” or Kingdom Come and the End of History.
Thus the Phenomenology’s itinerary simply traces the stages of the realization of the CONCEPT
and Absolute Knowing. In passing, we must note that since the Concept, which is alone Reality, is

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THOUGHT, those “realist” Hegelians who hold that for Hegel Nature and the World is reality and
NOT Thought, are absolutely in error. Hegel is an idealist not a realist, as he says at Enc. §160:
“The standpoint of the Concept is ABSOLUTE IDEALISM … (and all else that counts as
independent) … is known within the Concept simply as an IDEAL moment.” Also at Enc. §381 he
states that, “Nature has vanished (it is simply ideal).”
Before we take a brief look at the stages that lead up to the Absolute Concept, two things. First,
one of the keys to the Phenomenology is CERTAINTY (Gewissheit, a cognate of Knowing,
Wissen); we move from “sense-certainty,” to “self-certainty,” and end with “absolute certainty
or knowing.” Second, we must state that just as Richard Winfield has “cracked the code” to
Hegel’s Science of Logic, it is our view that Jon Stewart has similarly “cracked the code” to
Hegel’s Phenomenology in his book, The Unity of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. In brief, Hegel
left us a “code” for understanding the Phenomenology in his Table of Contents, for example, in
the major “A B C” and “AA BB CC and DD” divisions of the work. I will just quote one of Hegel’s
passages that will make this crystal clear. It appears in section “B” of the “C (AA) REASON”
chapter:
“Just as Reason, in the role of observer, repeated, in the element of the category, the
movement of ‘A: CONSCIOUSNESS,’ namely, Sense-certainty, Perception, and the
Understanding, so will Reason again run through the double movement of ‘B: SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS,’ and pass over from Independence into its Freedom (211, §348).”
So I strongly advise everyone to read this book.
The first stage of the journey that leads to the Absolute Concept is “A: CONSCIOUSNESS,” that is,
“Consciousness of an OTHER.” The main “A B C” stages of the book are “A: CONSCIOUSNESS,”
“B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS,” and “C” which is untitled but whose first section is “AA: REASON.” In
effect, we move from “Consciousness of an OTHER” to “Consciousness of Consciousness or
SELF,” to the UNITY of CONSCIOUSNESS and SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, which has 4 forms, the first
of which is REASON – then SPIRIT, RELIGION, and lastly ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.
The move from CONSCIOUSNESS to SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS and the “CONCEPT” signifies not only
a major step in exiting Plato’s Cave but also that we are in a sense at the end of the book! For we
now know that Consciousness, the Concept or Thought is REALITY. All that remains to do is to
harvest or assimilate all remaining OBJECTS (other selves, the world, “God”) into the CONCEPT,
which then becomes the ABSOLUTE CONCEPT.
In brief, “A: CONSCIOUSNESS” has 3 stages or shapes of consciousness: Sense-certainty,
Perception, and Understanding, whose respective independent Objects or Not-I’s are the THIS,
the THING, and FORCES and LAWS. Here we will watch how the dialectical experience will
negate these Objects and show how they reveal their Truth to be Consciousness and the Concept.
Next, “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS,” which also harbors CONSCIOUSNESS, has as its goal their
unification. It is first DESIRE, which seeks to validate itself by negating/consuming its Object

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(Life); when this fails it turns to an Object in which it can see itself, Another Self-Consciousness,
which leads to recognition and the master/slave dialectic, which ends in the Freedom of Self-
Consciousness and its 3 forms: Stoicism, Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness. When the
priest connects the latter with its unchangeable Absolute Other we have a UNITY Hegel calls
“C (AA): REASON,” which is “the conscious certainty of being ALL REALITY.” Here Reason will
start from its immediacy and gradually actualize itself as “all reality” and become “SPIRIT.” It will
do this via an Observing Reason (that observes nature and self-consciousness), an Active Reason
(that seeks its happiness via pleasure, the law of its heart, and the pursuit of virtue), and a
Practical Reason (that engages in the “matter in hand,” and the giving and testing of laws). The
dialectic next takes us into
“C (BB): SPIRIT,” which is implicitly the unity of the self and the world. Here we have actual
historical spirits, from which all that preceded were abstractions. Spirit begins again in its
immediacy and we watch the Spirit actualize itself in 3 stages: “A: True Spirit (Greek and
Roman),” “B: Self-alienated Spirit (Medieval and Modern),” and “C: Spirit Certain of Itself
(Kantian and Fichtean Morality).” The key here is the unity of the Universal (the Greek ethical
Spirit) and the Individual (the Modern moral Spirit) or “U.I.” – which signifies Spirit actualized,
the Kingdom of God, and the End of History; it is a recognition and reconciliation of selves which
Hegel describes as, “God appearing in the form of those who know themselves as pure
knowledge.”
Briefly, in “A” we see how the harmony of the Greek immediate Spirit collapses (via “Antigone”);
in “B” we trace the progress of Spirit’s self-alienation in the wealth and politics of culture, in the
social critique of the disrupted “hippie” consciousness (“Rameau’s Nephew”), in the clash of
faith and insight or enlightenment, which came to a head in Utility and the absolute freedom
and terror of the French revolution; finally in “C” we move from France to Germany and the
actualization of Spirit, first in Kantian morality, where we have a dualism which ought not to be
(Kant has the Universal but not the Individual, hence no recognition of selves), and then in
Fichtean and Romantic conscience, where acting and judging conscience forgive each other,
resulting in a recognition that is God and Kingdom Come. Next having actualized Spirit as “God,”
we advance to
“C (CC): RELIGION,” the need here is to bring religion’s object, “God,” into the One Absolute
Concept. This is accomplished in the 3 phases of Natural Religion, Religion in the form of Art, and
The Revealed Religion, a religion in whose object we can see ourselves, and which Hegel calls the
absolute religion as expressing the Truth of the unity of human and divine, the finite and the
infinite; all that now remains is to give religion’s truth the true Form of the Concept – which
happens in
“C (DD): ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE or KNOWING,” in which we first have a summary of the stages
of the Phenomenology, culminating in Absolute Knowledge or the Absolute Concept which
occurs with the unification of Morality’s FORM and Religion’s CONTENT. We are finally out of the

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Cave for good! “Absolute Knowledge,” Hegel tells us, is “the knowledge of the Self’s act within
itself as all essentiality and all existence,” and it happens when “the Spirit gives its complete and
true CONTENT the FORM of the Self and thereby realizes its CONCEPT as remaining IN its
CONCEPT in this realization (485).” Hegel ends his Phenomenology and Introduction to Absolute
Science with a glance at what is to come, the sciences of LOGIC, NATURE, and SPIRIT.

THREE: A SUMMARY OF HEGEL’S “INTRODUCTION” TO THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT.

https://youtu.be/5HRXkjgG8b4
Our first question is: What is the “Instrument” view (or Kantian view) of knowledge? (46-48)
The opening paragraph tells us what it is:
“It is a natural assumption,” says Hegel, “that in Philosophy, before we start to deal with its proper
subject-matter, namely, the actual KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT TRULY IS, one must first of all come to an
understanding about Knowledge, which is regarded either as the INSTRUMENT to get hold of the
Absolute, or as the Medium through which one discovers it [for the fear is that] we might grasp
clouds of error instead of the Heaven of Truth! (46).”
Simply put, this Instrument or Kantian view of Knowledge assumes that: Knowledge and Truth
(Being-Reality-The Absolute) are SEPARATED, hence that Knowledge of the Truth (Absolute Science)
is IMPOSSIBLE! So Hegel advises us that we simply DO NOT take up this view. –Instead that we just
take Knowledge or Consciousness as it offers itself. Indeed, Consciousness knows SOMETHING! –
and hence is ALREADY connected with reality! In Hegel’s words: “Consciousness at once
DISTINGUISHES itself from something, and at the same time RELATES itself to it; or as it is said, this
SOMETHING EXISTS FOR CONSCIOUSNESS! (52).” Thus the Question is: WHAT is this Reality which
Consciousness knows, and to which it is ALREADY connected?!

Hence our second question is: What is Hegel’s METHOD (and plan) in the Phenomenology for
reaching KNOWLEDGE of Reality, that is, “Absolute Knowledge” or Science and its standpoint? (52-
56)
In brief: Hegel will begin the Phenomenology’s inquiry into “Knowledge as it APPEARS” with the
most elementary and immediate (claim to) Knowledge. He will then – rather the candidate or
Shape itself – will then compare its “CONCEPT of the Object” (which is called the “CRITERION”)
with the “OBJECT” as actually experienced. If it is discovered that they do not correspond or
agree we are then forced OF NECESSITY to advance to a higher, truer shape of consciousness or
Knowledge claim. Till we reach “Absolute Knowledge” – which is “the point where Knowledge no
longer needs to go beyond itself … where CONCEPT corresponds to OBJECT and OBJECT to
CONCEPT (51).” “[And thus] finally, when Consciousness grasps its own essence, this will signify
the nature of ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE ITSELF! (57).”
Lastly and briefly, What is “Absolute Knowledge (or Knowing)”?

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In a word, it is the UNITY of Self and Other, Subject and Object, Knowing and Being – the
knowledge that “There is only One Consciousness,” that Consciousness or THOUGHT (aka the
“ABSOLUTE CONCEPT”) is Reality. In Hegel’s words, in Absolute Knowledge, “The difference of
Consciousness from the Object is now overcome,” and “In knowing the Object, I am knowing
myself, and vice-versa.” And, from the Science of Logic: “Science presupposes that the
Opposition of Consciousness (to an Object) is overcome.” Hence as Hegel says, Absolute
Knowledge signifies that “HISTORY is now over!” It must further be said, finally, that Absolute
Knowledge is the ultimate most incredible and fulfilling experience imaginable, the very goal of
creation and the raison d’être of the universe’s existence; as our scriptures state: “eye has not
seen and ear has not heard what is coming on the scene!” Absolute Knowledge is in fact “God or
Self or Jedi-Realization.”
Next time we take up the Phenomenology’s first division. “A: CONSCIOUSNESS.”

THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 2
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “A: CONSCIOUSNESS”
https://youtu.be/tIShjowllag

Welcome! We are teaching the complete System of Hegel’s Philosophical or ABSOLUTE SCIENCE.
Last time we discussed: What is ABSOLUTE SCIENCE and How was it discovered? Gave a brief
overview of the Phenomenology of Spirit, and surveyed Hegel’s famous “Introduction” to the
Phenomenology. Today we will take up the Phenomenology’s first main division, “A:
CONSCIOUSNESS” and watch how we make the transition to “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.”

A. Consciousness.
By “consciousness” Hegel means “consciousness of an OTHER,” an independent Object which
would exist even if consciousness or a subject did not exist – an object or other such as a
sensuous This, perceptual Thing, or conceptual Force or Law. In the experience that follows all
these objects will prove contradictory and the result will be consciousness not of an Other, but
of Consciousness itself, i.e. Self-Consciousness. What we witness here, a la Plato, is simply the
birth of the UNIVERSAL, our first foray above the Divided Line and outside the Cave of sense-
individuals into true Reality and the intelligible world of the CONCEPT.
So, as the science of “appearing Knowledge,” we will start with the most elementary and
immediate knowledge shape and watch how of itself it will gradually be transformed, ultimately,
into true or absolute knowledge – the absolute CONCEPT. Hence we begin the ascent to Science
with the knowledge Hegel calls SENSE-CERTAINTY: OR THE THIS AND MEANING. ETC.

One. SENSE-CERTAINTY: OR THE THIS AND MEANING.

Our main question will be: Why does our experience of the object as a “THIS,” a unique
individual, show the object to be in reality a “Not-This,” a Universal?

First a Summary: Immediate Knowledge or Sense-Certainty is just a knowledge of the

IMMEDIATE, the This, Here, Now, a unique individual. We then compare the “Concept of
the Object” (the criterion or standard) with the Object as experienced to see if they
correspond. –The Concept or criterion being immediacy or pure being, i.e., an Object as
not mediated or containing differences, qualities, negation or relation to other things.
Thus the “Now” is first night, and then day, 9:01 AM, then 9:02 AM, and so on. What
abides in all these differences or negations is the self-same “Now” as UNIVERSAL, not the
immediate INDIVIDUAL now. It is the same with the “Here.” Here is a tree, then a house,
etc. Here also has a right, a left, a before, an after, an above, a below. What remains in all
these different Here’s is the one UNIVERSAL Here. Therefore, the THIS is not an
immediate individual THIS but in reality a mediated UNIVERSAL This (a sense or
“conditioned Universal”). This is the Truth or What IS.

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—Now, a more detailed account of the dialectic which has three moments: that of the Object,
sense-certainty claims its immediacy to lie in the Object; that of the Subject, its immediacy now
lies in the Subject; and that of the Subject and Object, its immediacy is now held to lie in the
WHOLE of sense-certainty or in “pointing out.”

Before we begin there are three points to make.

—In the opening paragraph Hegel mentions the word “Object” three times. Since we are doing a
“phenomenology,” a study of the phenomenon of “knowledge,” by “object” Hegel here means
the “knowledge itself” that we are investigating, comprised of its two sides, the knowing or
consciousness AND its object, and not the Object of the Knowing (such as This, Thing, or Force).
Throughout the Phenomenology we will be dealing with a three-tiered structure, namely:
consciousness OF consciousness OF the Object. The first consciousness is that of the
phenomenologist or ourselves (the “We”). The second consciousness is that of the candidate,
shape (Gestalt) or knowledge we are currently investigating to see if it qualifies as genuine or
absolute knowledge.
—In the second paragraph we discover that while sense-certainty seems initially to be the
richest and truest knowledge – since there is no limit in space and time to the wealth the senses
contain, and since nothing has yet been omitted from the object of sense – certainty’s certainty
is in fact “the most abstract and poorest truth!” For all it can say about the thing it knows and is
certain of, is “IT IS.” Sense-certainty’s Truth, what it knows, is just the pure BEING or simple
IMMEDIACY of the thing before it. And this is because it is an individual without any qualities or
differences within it, and without any relations to other things; as mediation-free it is purely
immediate.
—It is further discovered that although the two sides of sense-certainty, the “I” or knowing AND
the Object or This, are in fact mediated by each other (e.g. the “I” is in sense-certainty through
the object, and vice-versa), sense-certainty insists that it is the Object that alone is essential and
immediate while the “I” is unessential and mediated.

Let’s now see if this is true, if the Object, the This, is really the essence and immediate, or rather
the reverse.

One. The dialectic of the object.

—The Object, the THIS, of which I am certain, has two sides: the “Now” and the “Here.” First,
the “Now.” Is the “Now” something immediate? If as Hegel says, we answer the question, What
is the “Now”, with “The Now is night,” and the next day consider this answer, we’d have to say
“The Now is not night but rather day.” The “Now” itself nevertheless remains and preserves
itself through the vanishing or negation of night and day, etc., and is indifferent to what its
contents are. Such a thing that exists and maintains itself through the NEGATION of this and
that, and is therefore mediated, Hegel calls a “Universal.” Hence the Now, the object of sense-
certainty, is not something immediate and individual, but rather something mediated and
Universal.
—The same is true of the being of the “Here.” The Here is now a tree, then the Here is a house,
then a lake, etc. The Here that abides and remains through all the different contents or instances
of the Here – through being and equally not being a tree, a house, a lake – a Here that IS through

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NEGATION, through NOT being this or that, is again a UNIVERSAL Here, something mediated and
not immediate hence essential, as asserted by sense-certainty.

—But sense-certainty will not give up. Being forced to abandon the Object as the source of its
certainty, its immediacy, and its essence, it now turns to the Subject, and claims its certainty and
immediacy is to be found there, namely, in the immediacy of MY seeing and hearing.
As Hegel says: “[Sense-certainty’s] Truth is in the object as MY object, or in its being MINE; it is,
because “I” know it. Sense-certainty … though expelled from the object, is not yet thereby
overcome, but only driven back into the ‘I’.” (61).

Two. The dialectic of the subject.

Thus, the certainty of what I know is now in the immediacy of my seeing it. “I”, this singular
individual “I”, see this tree and assert that “the Here is a tree.” However, another individual “I”
sees a house and asserts that “the Here is a house” instead. Both have the same validation, the
immediacy of seeing. But one truth vanishes in the other. What nevertheless remains is the “I”
as UNIVERSAL, the “I” as a simple seeing, a seeing of neither the house or tree, and mediated by
the negation of tree, house, etc.
Hence the “I”, like Now, Here, or This, is merely Universal. As language shows, I may “mean” this
individual singular “I”, but when I say “I”, I say what is Universal, for everyone is “I”.

Three. The dialectic of the subject and object.

Forced out of the Object and now the Subject, neither being the “essential,” sense-certainty
retreats to its last stronghold – it puts the WHOLE of sense-certainty to the test as the essence of
its immediacy. Thus, sense certainty now “sticks firmly to one immediate relation: the Now is
day (63).” Since its “I” is now riveted to one immediate relation, unwilling to consider anything
else, we will ask it to just “point out” to us the NOW which it is immediately certain of.
Thus, the “Now” is pointed to as this Now. But this Now has already ceased to be in the pointing
out of it! It is a Now that “has been,” has been present as a Now of “being,” but now is past, IS
NOT! The Now I am presently pointing to, is another Now than the Now originally pointed to. So
here again we learn that the truth of sense-certainty is not the immediate, the simple, the
singular but the Universal, the Universal Now, the Now which is a plurality of Now’s, such as the
Hour or the Day which consists in many Now’s, hence is mediated by the negation of all the
different Now’s, hence is indifferent to what they contain.
The same is true of the specific individual “Here” that is pointed to; it too is a manifold of Here’s,
a Universal – hence something mediated, involving otherness, not immediate. The Here pointed
out has an above and a below, a before and an after, a right and a left – indeed it is such as to
include and encompass the entire universe!

The last paragraphs of this first section make it crystal clear as to what Hegel‘s true opinion
concerning the being of sensuous things is. For not only does he advise that “those who assert
the truth and certainty of the reality of sense objects … should go back to the most elementary
school of wisdom (of the Eleusinian Mysteries, of the eating of bread and drinking of wine),” but
he also notes that even the animals are not as stupid as these sense “realist” metaphysicians
and are “profoundly initiated into this wisdom of the true nothingness of sensuous things.”

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Sense-certainty has thus been refuted, but we have a result and are now compelled to move on
to the next, truer candidate of genuine or absolute knowledge, which Hegel calls

Two. PERCEPTION: OR THE THING AND DECEPTION. https://youtu.be/hLoEnyL7LNI

Here our focal question will be: Why doesn’t the Thing with its properties (the Object)
correspond to its Concept or criterion (to be self-identical or non-contradictory)? Also: Explain
the Result of Perception: the new Object, the “Unconditioned Universal.”

First a Summary: The THING (with its properties/universals) is a contradiction and not
self-identical since it is both ONE and MANY at the same time. I first perceive e.g. Salt as
ONE. But then I perceive its MANY properties (white, cubical, tart) – which I am forced to
attribute to myself (as my “Reflection”: it’s white to my eyes, tart to my tongue, etc)
since the Thing is self-identical, I am not. But the Thing is ONE only as opposed to others;
but as a sheer ONE it is just like all the others; so it needs properties to be distinguished
from others, hence to exist. SO the Thing is really MANY or has these properties; thus the
aspect of the ONE I now regard as coming from myself, as my “Reflection.”
But now I see that both the Thing and myself are ONE and MANY; both myself and the
Thing are “Reflected into themselves.” But as both ONE and MANY the Thing (Reality) is
again contradictory. The way out is to say its ONE aspect is essential, while its MANY
aspect is unessential. But this doesn’t help! The Thing as ONE has an essential feature
that is unique and distinguishes it from all others. But by this very feature the Thing is
demolished! For by being related to other things (“I am NOT them”) it is continuous with
them and dependent on them and thus forfeits its BEING, for it is “for itself” or
independent only insofar as it is NOT in relation with others outside itself!
This is expressed by saying the THING is both “for itself” and “for another” at the same
time. This unity of the two (which are Thoughts) Hegel calls the “UNCONDITIONED
UNIVERSAL” – which is now the True Object of Consciousness or is Reality.

As with Sense-certainty, the dialectic of Perception has three moments. But first, three
preliminary points:
—One. The result of sense-certainty is the UNIVERSAL. This means that BEING contains
NEGATION in it: the universal This or Now is NOT day, NOT night, NOT 9 AM, etc; hence negation
in its many forms will be with us to the end. It also means that the new object, the Thing, which
is one thing or an INDIVIDUAL, will also be in CONTRADICTION with its UNIVERSAL aspect (its
properties), that is, the Universal and Individual are in an opposition which will become at the
end that of BEING FOR ITSELF and BEING FOR ANOTHER, and will become a UNITY Hegel will call
the “UNCONDITIONED UNIVERSAL.”
In short, Perception will do all it can to avoid this contradiction, to prevent its Object, the Thing,
Reality, the Truth from being contradictory or having opposite aspects, but in the end it fails.
Consciousness will learn that it is CONTRADICTION, the UNITY OF OPPOSITES, that is the true
nature of Reality or What IS, which Hegel will also call INFINITY.

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—Two. It is important to keep in mind that there is a difference between the RESULT of a given
shape of consciousness or knowledge stance AND how the new knowledge stance initially views
and takes up this result and the new Object. Simply put, the new knowledge stance, e.g.
Perception, will always begin from immediacy or the most rudimentary understanding of the
result – only at the end of its dialectical experience will it attain a full grasp of the result, will IT
know what WE, the phenomenologists, initially know: what is initially FOR US or IN ITSELF will
also be FOR IT!

—Three. Therefore, as regards Perception, the result of sense-certainty was the UNIVERSAL,
hence the “I”, the subject AND the object both proved to be UNIVERSALS, hence essential. But
for Perception itself it is only the Object, the Thing that is essential or the essence, and not also
the “I” or act of perceiving, the “pointing out” of the aspects of the perceived self-same Thing.
The object is the STABLE aspect, the act of perceiving the UNSTABLE and unessential aspect,
equally capable of getting it right, apprehending the Thing correctly, or getting it wrong and
liable to DECEPTION.

Hegel begins to define the Truth, the Object which Perception claims to know as follows:
“[Because the result of sense-certainty is] a mediated Universal, the object must express this
mediated nature in its own self. This it does by showing itself to be THE THING WITH MANY
PROPERTIES. The wealth of sense-knowledge belongs to perception, not to immediate certainty,
for which it was only the source of instances; for only perception contains NEGATION, that is,
difference or manifoldness, within its own essence (67).”

Thus, the Thing with many properties has three moments: it is an exclusive and excluding ONE;
an inclusive universal medium of many sensuous universal properties, an ALSO; and the many
PROPERTIES themselves, which connect the ONE and the ALSO.
The precise problem here is that the properties are positive AND negative. That is: the Thing is
first a universal medium, an ALSO (“thinghood”), in which many properties (sensuous universals)
interpenetrate without affecting each other. Hegel‘s example is a cube of SALT. Just as with the
universal single HERE of sense-certainty, we have a single HERE of Salt in which the properties,
whiteness, tartness, cubicalness, etc., all coexist and interpenetrate, none has a different Here
than the others. The Salt is white, ALSO tart, ALSO cubical, etc. This is the positive aspect of the
properties.
The negative aspect is this: properties cannot be indifferent to each other because to be a
property, white, tart, it must be DETERMINATE, this, not that – hence must exclude, be opposed
to, or NEGATE other properties: hence properties cannot be in the universal medium but must
be outside it. As Hegel says: “the medium is not merely an ALSO, and indifferent unity, but a ONE
as well, a unity which excludes an other. The One is the moment of NEGATION, a simple relation
of self to self, which excludes [or “negates”] an other, and is that by which ‘thinghood’ is
determined as a Thing (69).“

The criterion or standard here is SELF-IDENTITY or SELF-SAMENESS, the Thing as the True must
be NON-CONTRADICTORY. Thus the problem and downfall of Perception as genuine knowledge,

12
is the impossibility of reconciling the Thing’s three CONTRADICTORY moments of ONE, ALSO,
and PROPERTIES – e.g. of it being a ONE and a MANY at the same time.

The dialectic’s three moments are: that of the Object: perception as just pure apprehension; that
of the Object and Subject1: perception as both pure apprehension and reflection into itself; and
that of the Object and Subject2: the object is not true as self-identical but has contradictory
aspects: One and Many properties, BEING FOR ITSELF and BEING FOR ANOTHER.

So first, the moment of the Object: https://youtu.be/5CNq13v2-1E

I, as perception, take myself to be a pure apprehension of the self-identical Thing before me. If
in my perceiving a contradiction arises I will attribute this to myself, the unstable factor, and not
to the Thing, the stable identical factor.
Thus, I perceive the Thing to be a ONE. But I also perceive in it a PROPERTY, e.g. whiteness,
which, as a Universal, goes beyond the ONE unique Thing (as many things are white). Hence, I
did not apprehend the thing correctly when I took it to be a ONE. But as in truth, a UNIVERSAL
property which exists in many things, the objective essence is now a COMMUNITY of objects.
However, I now see the property to be determinate, e.g. white, and hence opposed to and
excluding other properties, e.g. black. Hence what in truth is before me is not a COMMUNITY or
continuity but rather a ONE that excludes. But now I perceive in the exclusive ONE many such
properties which are indifferent and do NOT affect one another. Hence the exclusive ONE is not
such but instead a common universal MEDIUM. But I now perceive that the properties, the
sensuous universals (white, tart, cubical) in the object, are determinate, independent and really
exclude one another. But this now means that the Object, the True, is in fact NOT a universal
MEDIUM but rather the single Property by itself! – which however is now NOT a property or
something determinate, for it is now not IN a One, nor is it in relation to others (for it can only
be DETERMINATE, e.g. White, in contrast with others, e.g. black, tart). As Hegel says: “As this
pure relating of itself to itself, it remains merely sensuous being as such, since it no longer
possesses the character of negativity [or NEGATION].“

Hence, we are back to the pure BEING of sense-certainty, and have left perception altogether!
The truth however, is that sense-certainty, as we have seen, of necessity transcends itself and
passes over into perception. Therefore, we must run through the same cycle again but in a
different way.

Next the second moment of the Subject-Object1.

I now see that I am not just a pure “apprehension” of the Thing. But I am also “reflected out of
the Thing, the true, and into myself,” I do not just perceive the Thing as it is, I also perceive what
is my subjective reflection, my contribution or addition to the Thing, something which is not
really IN the Thing itself. The Thing is still truly SELF-IDENTICAL, while myself or consciousness is
NOT self-identical but returns into itself out of the identity of the Thing. So, if I SEPARATE the
untruth of my reflection from the truth of my perception, I will avoid DECEPTION and have the
Thing truly.

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So, I first perceive the thing as ONE. But then I perceive MANY properties in the Thing, which
CONTRADICTS it as ONE. Thus, in order to preserve the things identity, I regard the diversity of
properties as an untruth, as NOT in the thing but in ME, as my reflection. The Thing is white
because I see it, tart because I taste it, etc.

So the Thing is really ONE. BUT! it is only ONE and unique if it is opposed to and different from
other Things. As a sheer One it is the SAME as others. So it really needs properties and
determinacy to be distinguished from others. So the Thing indeed has properties, it is a universal
MEDIUM, an ALSO of independent properties or “matters.” Hence its being a ONE is MY
reflection, is subjective not objective. I put the unity into the Thing (e.g. insofar as it is white, it is
not tart, etc.).

The result of this second experience is that not just consciousness but the object as well, shows
itself as a pure many-less ONE and an ALSO of independent properties. The Thing is no longer
SELF-IDENTICAL, but contains in itself an opposite Truth! The Thing shows itself to perceiving
consciousness as one thing (e.g. a ONE), but AT THE SAME TIME it is REFLECTED back into itself
as another thing, an opposite (e.g. a Many or ALSO).

Finally, the third moment of the Subject-Object2.

The object of consciousness is now seen to be CONTRADICTORY or a duality-in-one. It is both
FOR ITSELF (or independent, having no connection to another, AS reflected into itself), and also
FOR ANOTHER (as it shows itself to consciousness). The question is, What ploy can Perception
use to avoid this contradiction which would destroy it?
As a last-ditch effort, perception now claims that, yes, the Thing does contain two sides, a
diversity, within it, but the diversity falls into different Things. That is, it is truly FOR ITSELF, ONE,
and independent, with an essential difference or quality of its own; however it is FOR ANOTHER,
having a diversity of properties, NOT because of its relation to consciousness but because of its
relation to different Things. So it is in opposition NOT to itself, but to OTHER Things. But as Hegel
says, this will not work.

Simply put, the Thing is only ONE and independent in so far as it is NOT IN RELATION TO
OTHERS. But its essential difference PUTS IT in relation to others. It says, in effect, I am different
from them, I am NOT them. Hence the Thing’s Being is dependent on their Being, on NOT being
what they are. As Hegel says: “The Thing is posited as being FOR ITSELF [hence] as the ABSOLUTE
NEGATION of all other-being.“ Hence the Thing is only this RELATING to others, and this relation
is the NEGATION of its being.
The object is therefore the OPPOSITE of itself! It is FOR ITSELF so far as it is FOR ANOTHER, and
vice-versa. It is the UNITY OF OPPOSITES! – which is the real Truth of Perception and which
Hegel will call the “UNCONDITIONED UNIVERSAL,” as well as the CONCEPT, INFINITY, and LIFE.
Note that the “UNCONDITIONED UNIVERSAL” that has emerged is a Universal of pure self-
subsistent THOUGHT, whereas the “CONDITIONED UNIVERSAL” of sense and perception was a
Universal conditioned by SENSE (such as, whiteness, tartness, and cubicalness).

What is of absolute importance is that CONTRADICTION, the unity of opposites, is not to be

14
avoided. It is the TRUTH, the true nature of Reality or What IS. Thus, we have left the senses and
the being of sensuous properties behind us. It is THOUGHTS, pure essences, universal
abstractions that in truth rule perception, and “are alone what the sensuous is [and reduces to]
(78).” The goal of perceptual understanding is simply to “bring together these THOUGHTS,” of
universal and singular, Also and One, Being for self and Being for another, and thus take us to
UNDERSTANDING, the next shape of consciousness, the truth of perception.

Three. FORCE AND THE UNDERSTANDING: APPEARANCE AND THE SUPERSENSIBLE WORLD.
https://youtu.be/Ss3UNo63xu0
[WE now know that the Object – what truly exists – is Consciousness itself (the “I” or Concept)
and not sense-Things. But the Understanding thinks that the Object or what it knows are
“Forces” (or Laws) located behind the sense-Things (now regarded as a world of “appearance”)
as their cause or ground.
Our main question is: How does Understanding come to know that there are in fact no Forces
(indeed nothing at all!) to be found behind the “curtain of appearance”? —that is, unless we
ourselves go behind it, in order to find what really and alone is there, namely, the true Object,
Ourselves or CONSCIOUSNESS!
First a Summary: We have no direct experience of FORCES imagined to be behind the
world of the senses. Understanding reasons that because sense objects are not Reality,
are appearances only, and because there MUST be a Reality, it MUST be located behind
these objects as their hidden cause, in the form of FORCES. But it soon learns that
independent Forces are an impossibility, that Force cannot be separated from its Concept
(or ‘Thought’ in our mind). For both Force and its Expression (the sense-world of things),
as Cause and Effect, are dependent on each other; hence Force as “cause” cannot exist in
its own right independently of its “effect” (a ‘cause’ without an ‘effect’ cannot be a
‘cause’ or Reality)! —Also a Force needs to be “solicited” by another Force to express
itself, which likewise must in turn be “solicited” by the first Force to do its “soliciting”!
Thus, Force collapses on itself, and what is left is just a unity of “thought” or the
“Unconditioned Universal” (the Concept).
The same is true concerning LAWS: simply, a Law is a “universal” which can only exist
in the Understanding or Subject as Thought, and not in the sense-material world of
“individuals.” SO, in essence, both Forces and Laws collapse into the Understanding,
there being NOTHING on the other side, behind the “curtain” of sense-appearance—that
is, unless we ourselves go behind it! Hence the UNCONDITIONED UNIVERSAL –
Consciousness, Thought, the Concept (Plato’s “The GOOD” or “The FORCE”) – is alone the
true object and what truly IS.]
As we stated, Plato is the key to understanding Hegel‘s Phenomenology, which can be viewed as
a grand “ascent” out of the Cave of the senses into the intelligible world of Thought and Reality
and the Absolute Concept. In Hegel‘s introductory words of this chapter:

15
“In the dialectic of sense-certainty, seeing and hearing have been lost to consciousness; and, as
perception, consciousness has arrived at THOUGHTS, which it brings together for the first time in
the Unconditioned Universal (79, §132).”

The truth of perception is the Unconditioned Universal, that is, the pure sense-free THOUGHT of
the unity of the opposites BEING FOR SELF and BEING FOR ANOTHER. Important is that this
unity, which Hegel calls FORM, contains in itself as well the CONTENT of ALL the things in the
sense-perceived world. That is, the FORM, the Unconditioned Universal, is ABSOLUTE and ALL
THAT EXISTS. Also as stated, not only do we again start here with immediacy, but Understanding
still finds itself within the first section “A. Consciousness” of an Object. This means that though
Understanding’s OBJECT or Truth, the result of Perception, is in fact THOUGHT, the
Unconditioned Universal or the CONCEPT itself – it immediately takes its Object to be something
“objective,” a not-I, and NOT “subjective,” an “I” or consciousness, which it is. It takes its Object
instead to be “Force” and ‘Law.” We have so far watched how the Object of consciousness has
changed from a sense-This, to a Thing, to an Unconditioned Universal. In this dialectic we will
watch how the Object changes from Force to Law, to Concept and Consciousness – taking us into
“B. Self-consciousness.”

Now, although in the Truth of the Unconditioned Universal, Form and Content are now ONE –
Form being inclusive of Content – because the Understanding takes this result as “objective” (as
“not -I”), Form and Content separate and we return to perception – whose content is the two
moments of the MEDIUM of many properties or matters and the ONE reflected into itself,
moments which transition into each other.
—Hegel calls this “FORCE” – which is a movement of unity (Force proper or in itself) to diversity
of properties (Force as expressed), and back to unity (Force unexpressed). –This differs from
Perception where there was NO connection between the Thing and its indifferent properties;
here, the properties or matters are produced by the Force itself.
The dialectic of Understanding has three moments: that of Force, Law, and what Hegel calls the
“Inverted World.”

ONE: the moment of Force.

Let’s see how Force negates itself and becomes Law.
First a brief aside: most commentators forget that we are starting here with Understanding in its
immediacy. Hence it is NOT that Force in itself is alone Reality, whereas Force expressed (the
sense properties of this “pen” or “table”) is only Appearance. Force expressed is equally Reality!
The truth is, as Hegel says, that Force in itself and Force expressed are inseparable (i.e. in
“concept”). In fact, Force in itself, as a unity, is NOT in the so-called “supersensible world” – it is
IN the Thing we perceive. The “appearance/supersensible world” distinction will only first
emerge with “Law.”

Now, Hegel next distinguishes the “Concept” of Force and the “Reality” of Force. The “Concept”
of Force just indicates that its two moments, Force and its expression, are inseparable. But the
“Reality” of Force only occurs when the two are given INDEPENDENT existence – which must

16
happen because the Truth is the unconditioned universal, the unity of being for self and being
for another, or the “unity of opposites” – so the “opposites” must also be real or independent.
This means that in order for the independent (self-subsistent) Force in itself to “express itself”
(as a diversity of properties) it must be provoked or “solicited” to do so by a “second Force.”
However, the second Force, being itself a “Force,” can only act on or solicit the first Force if it
TOO is solicited to solicit – and by the first Force itself.
This can be made clearer by the analogous relation of “cause” and “effect.” A cause is only a
cause if it has an effect. So, the effect can be regarded also as a cause – the cause of the cause
being a cause – which makes the cause itself an “effect” of the “effect” of the cause. Both
thereby exchange roles and functions – which is also true of the two Forces and their soliciting
and solicited aspects.
The upshot is, we have here a “difference which is no difference” – which Hegel will call
“INFINITY” at the end, and takes us over into “Self-consciousness,” which is likewise a difference
which is no difference. It is this reciprocal movement of soliciting and being solicited which Hegel
calls the “play of forces” – in which the Forces vanish and yield an “absolute FLUX” in which the
sense-manifold NOW switches from Reality to Appearance – at which point a supersensible
realm of Laws opens up and replaces Force as the true Reality and What IS.

TWO: the moment of LAW.

Thus Hegel says: “What there is in this absolute FLUX is only difference as a universal difference”
– namely Law, and “Law is the stable image of unstable appearance [hence] the supersensible
world is an inert realm of laws.“ We now have a syllogism whose extremes are the
Understanding and an inner realm of laws, and a middle, connecting them, which is the
sensuous world of Appearance.
However, the realm of laws, the new Truth for understanding, has problems. One problem is
that a law, such as the law of falling bodies, only accounts for some features of sensuous
appearance but not all. “Thus appearance retains for itself an aspect which is not in the inner
world (91).”
To remedy this, we can multiply laws indefinitely, but positing many laws, says Hegel,
contradicts the universal Unity (or unconditioned universality) which the Truth, initially, is
supposed to have. AND if we try to collapse the many laws into ONE Law, then this One Law
becomes so general and superficial that it cannot account for anything in its specific detail.
—Another problem is the “tautological” nature of EXPLANATION, i.e., of a singular phenomenon
using Law and Force. For example, we have a single occurrence of lightning, and then we
generalize it into a universal “law of electricity,” having its ground in an
electrical “Force,” which is said to “explain” the occurrence of lightning. But the Force and the
Law say the same thing: “when the Force is expressed opposite electricities appear, ‘positive’
and ‘negative’ [which at best is a “description” but not an “explanation”].” Another example is:
Why does a stone raised above the ground fall when I release it from my hand, i.e., why is it
attracted to the earth? Because there is a Force of “attraction” in the earth which attracts the
stone to it! Another famous one is: Why does ingesting opium cause one to fall asleep? Because
opium has a property or force within it that induces sleep!

17
As Hegel says, these are explanations that explain nothing. But! The real key here is that
explanation is “a difference which is no difference!” And this is the same truth that comes to
light in what Hegel calls the “INVERTED WORLD.”

THREE: the moment of the “Inverted World.”

Hegel now says that it is the “inverted world that completes Appearance” since the inner world
now contains a principle of “change” which is able to explain change in Appearance. The
“inverted world” is the opposite of appearance and the first supersensible realm of laws. In the
inverted world the law is the OPPOSITE of the appearance: for example, what is “white” in the
perceived world is really “black” in the inverted or second supersensible world; what is “south
pole” in the former is in truth “north pole” in the latter. The upshot is that here we ALSO have a
“difference which is no difference.”
—That is to say: The law of the inverted world is, “what is SELF-SAME is really DIFFERENT, and
vice versa,” and this is an “inner difference.” As a result the two worlds, appearance and the
supersensible world, COLLAPSE INTO ONE, for the inverted supersensible world contains the
world of appearance WITHIN ITSELF. In simple language, the Inverted World now has a principle
of CHANGE (“a thing is the opposite of itself”) which is now able to account for ALL CHANGES in
the sensuous world of Appearance – which the other inner realm of Law was unable to do (for
“[sense]appearance retained an aspect which is NOT in the inner world”). Hence, there is now
NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO WORLDS, they are exactly the same! – hence, we have “a
difference which is no difference.” It is at this point that the Object of consciousness is
recognized to be “Self-consciousness,” “consciousness OF consciousness,” which is also a
“difference which is no difference,” or an “inner difference.”
—As Hegel says on page 100-101: “Each is the opposite of itself, each has its other within it and
they are only one unity. This simple INFINITY, or the ABSOLUTE CONCEPT … is self-identical, for
the differences are tautological, they are differences that are none.“ He continues: “Infinity — or
the absolute unrest of pure self-movement, in which whatever is determined in one way or
another, e.g. as BEING, is rather the OPPOSITE of this determination [NOTHING] — this [Infinity]
no doubt has been from the start the soul of all that has gone before (101).“
—AND this is exactly how Hegel in the Science of Logic describes the true INFINITE, namely, as
the relation of SELF and OTHER (or the Finite). Simply put, to the Other it is “I” who I am Other!
Hence, Self is Other and Other is Self! We thus have transcended the Finite and have the Infinite
or Infinity before us. We will also see this in LIFE, which is a unity which becomes and is at once a
diversity of members and systems.
At this point we leave CONSCIOUSNESS behind and transition to SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS in which
the Object, the Truth or Reality is now Consciousness itself.
—Again, Self-consciousness is an example of a “difference which is no difference,” an example of
Infinity and the Concept. As Hegel says: “[In Self-consciousness] I distinguish myself from myself,
and in doing so I am directly aware that what is distinguished from myself IS NOT DIFFERENT
[FROM ME]. I, the self-same being, repel myself from myself; but what is posited as distinct from
me, or as unlike me, is immediately … NOT a distinction for me (102).”
This is the final result: “The curtain [of appearance] hanging before the inner world is therefore
drawn away, and we have [SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, i.e.,] the inner being [the “I”] gazing into the
inner world – the vision of the self-same being which … posits itself as an inner being containing

18
different moments, but for which equally these [different] moments are immediately NOT
DIFFERENT (103)!”

We will take up “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS” in our next lecture.

THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 3
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS”
https://youtu.be/tMeX6JFp9nc

Welcome! Last time we discussed the Phenomenology’s first main division, “A: CONSCIOUSNESS”
and made the transition to “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.” Today we will take up “B: SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS” and make our transition into “C (AA) REASON.”

B. Self-Consciousness.
We have now reached a critical turning-point in the Phenomenology. For “Self-Consciousness” is
in essence the end of the book! All that remains is to increase the CONTENTS of the “I” (Self or
Concept) by filling it with the remaining contents/objects of Consciousness.
“Self-Consciousness” has three parts: THE TRUTH OF SELF-CERTAINTY (the Introduction, Truth, Life
and Desire); INDEPENDENCE AND DEPENDENCE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: MASTER AND SLAVE RECOGNITION; AND
THE FREEDOM OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: STOICISM, SKEPTICISM, AND THE UNHAPPY CONSCIOUSNESS. —The
OBJECT here is the “I” and: Life, Another “I”, the World, and God.

Our three questions and their brief answers are the following:
ONE: We start again at the beginning, with immediacy, not yet having accomplished the
unification of SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS and CONSCIOUSNESS, the Task of this section; hence the Self or “I”
has a double Object: itself and a sense-Object. The SELF (“I”) is first DESIRE or the need to
negate the sense-Object’s Otherness and turn it into itSelf. Thus our question:
Why can Desire be satisfied only when the Object is ANOTHER SELF (an “I”), that is, by
RECOGNITION?
—In brief, because Another Self is an “Object that is also a Subject” – in which I can continually
see myself IN this Object and do not have to destroy or negate it, as I had to do with the
previous self-less Object of Desire.

TWO: Why does “Recognition” by Two “I”’s lead to a “fight to the death” and the Master/Slave
dialectic (the beginning of History and States)? Also: Why does the Slave, not the Master, make
all further historical progress?
—In brief, because the goal of Recognition is for both Selves to see themselves in each other;
each Self wants to be recognized by the Other but is unwilling to recognize the Other in turn.
Also, All I really see is your “physical sense” Body. How do I know you are NOT just a Body or a
Thing (like all the other Objects I have been dealing with and negating)? You thus have to Prove
to me that you are a Self (a Being-for-self), a Subject and hence “Free” as well, by risking your life
and showing me that your Body and Life are NOT of ultimate importance, since you are way
more than them, than a creature of nature. The Slave makes all further progress simply because

20
of his “formative activity” for the Master, causing him to see himSelf in the independent Object
and thus realize his OWN independence and freedom.

THREE: As regards “B: Freedom of Self-consciousness,” What are the world-views of Stoicism,
Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness, and their respective attitudes towards “the
world”?
—In brief: the Stoic knows that “In thinking, I am free,” however he lives only in his interior life,
his mind, and is aloof from the world; the Skeptic engages with the world and shows – by
skeptical “equipollent” (pro and con) argument – how objects are not real but only appearance;
the Unhappy Consciousness (the Medieval Monk) wants to unite with God, the distant and
unchangeable Other, but finds it impossible; the world is transitory and has value only so far as it
leads to this goal; the Monk renounces his will and all decision-making responsibility to the Priest
(who, ultimately, unites the two extremes; which leads to Reason and the Modern World).

First a brief Review: https://youtu.be/DNtBowPICfE

We have advanced from Consciousness to Self-consciousness. Thus the This, Thing, Force and
Law have proved NOT to be the “in itself” (the Truth, What IS), but only “the in itself for
consciousness.” These “objects” have instead become mere “moments” of Self-consciousness
itself, which is now the true “in itself” and what really IS. —To recall: we made the final
transition to Self-consciousness in “Force and Understanding.” The result and truth of Perception
was the “unconditioned universal,” that is, Thought or the Concept (as the unity of Being for
itself and Being for another). But Understanding, in its immediacy, took this result (the Truth) as
“Objective” (a Not-I or “Force”), not as I, Thought or Concept. At the end of its experience (via,
Force, Law, and the Inverted World) Understanding learned the truth that the Object is really
Understanding itself – i.e. both Force and Law proved to be something “subjective,” belonging to
Understanding, and NOT “objective” – an independent Not-I. And thus we advanced to the new
shape of “Self-consciousness” which Hegel calls “the native land of Truth.”
—Before we continue, an important note: We have said that when a new shape begins, WE
know the result of the previous shape, while the new shape itself does not (only at the end will
IT know what WE know). THIS must be qualified! As a rule, the new shape at the end rather does
NOT know what we know; or it does, but “forgets” and remains within its shape and standpoint.
Only WE advance to the next truer shape. BUT, we always know MORE than we did at the
beginning! For example, in Perception at the start the “universal” was the truth. But the
universal at the end became the Unconditioned Universal or the unity of Being for itself and
Being for another – something we did NOT know at the start. So we, the phenomenologists, DO
learn something by the end of each “refuted” shape!
OK. The shape now before us is "Self-consciousness”; we have advanced from consciousness of
an Other, to consciousness of consciousness, from the Knowing of an Other, to the Knowing of
ITSELF (the Knowing of Knowing). —As we said, "Self-consciousness” is the end of the book since

21
Absolute Knowing, the final Truth or true Knowledge, is CONSCIOUSNESS, THOUGHT or
CONCEPT. All that remains now, is to transfer all remaining “Objects” (other selves, the world,
God) INTO the Concept! – in other words, to UNITE Consciousness and Self-consciousness – a
state in which OBJECT and SELF are ONE!
“B: Self-consciousness” is just the beginning of this unification process! So we begin here with
Self-consciousness in its immediate form, as inextricably connected to Consciousness (OF an
Object or Not-I). As Hegel says, Self-consciousness as immediate, as “I = I”, is just a “motionless
tautology,” for as yet there is NO DIFFERENCE between the two “I’s” in the “I = I” formula for
Self-consciousness – i.e. between the first or “subject” I, and the second or “object” I. Hence the
new shape in its immediacy is just “I”, a “pure I”, and not yet an “I = I.” Of course we, the
phenomenological observers, know the Truth, which IT will later learn.
Hegel also says that Self-consciousness in truth is NOT motionless but “movement” – that is,
“the reflection out of the being of the world of sense and perception, and the return from
Otherness [or the Object] (105).” –This “return” will be “Desire.”
So, to truly have “Self-consciousness” we need an OBJECT from which consciousness will return
into itself; i.e. an Object in which consciousness will SEE itself! Ultimately this Object will be a
SELF, “another Self-consciousness.”
In the dialectic of Self-consciousness, we will observe the first process whereby Self-
consciousness and Consciousness become One. Thus Self-consciousness is first DESIRE, then
RECOGNITION, and finally the three forms of Free Self-consciousness: Stoicism, Skepticism, and
the Unhappy Consciousness – which takes us into C: REASON, the certainty that Consciousness is
all reality.
Now to recall: the result and truth of Understanding was the “inner difference” Hegel called “a
difference which was no difference” – as well as Infinity, Life, and the Unity of Opposites: in a
word, “Self-consciousness.” As Hegel says, Consciousness of an Object, Other or Not-I, is still
with us (even though the Object is known to be “Appearance” only; the “I” or Self-consciousness
alone being the Truth); hence “the whole expanse of the sensuous world is preserved (105).”
Thus we begin with TWO Objects: the “I” (the Object of Self-consciousness and true Reality) and
the Sense-world (the Object of Consciousness and a “negative,” being only Appearance). Thus,
“The unity of Self-consciousness with itself [as the sole truth] … must become essential to Self-
consciousness [hence] Self-consciousness is DESIRE (105)!” Its Desire is to UNIFY its
Consciousness with itself, that is, to NEGATE or get rid of its Object, as something that is NOT
itself, is opposed to itself, and contradicts the Truth of itself as alone Reality. —We should also
note here that the Object of and for immediate Self-consciousness, is first mere “appearance”
and NOT independent, but later DOES becomes real and independent (as another I)!
Now since the result of Understanding was Infinity or Life, this means the Object of
Consciousness to be negated MUST reflect this result, hence must be Life, a living thing –

22
eventually a living Self-consciousness. “The difference which is no difference” or “Infinity,” as
Hegel says, “is the simple essence of Life (100).” Hence a living thing is an “organism” that
maintains itself by differentiating itself into a plurality of organs and systems, then
simultaneously cancelling the differences, returning into UNITY – which results in a “difference
(the organs) which is no difference (as the Unity in which they are cancelled).”

OK, ONE: DESIRE. https://youtu.be/KMJdPuNnVKA

DESIRE (Begierde) arises simply because Consciousness exists, because Consciousness of an
Object is connected to Self-consciousness. Desire arises because “I” am confronted with an
Object which is NOT myself or in which I do not see myself; an Object which is opposed to me, is
the NEGATION of myself and a Not-I – hence an INDEPENDENT Object.
However, this should not be, since “I”, since Self-consciousness, is the Truth and alone Reality.
Hence “Desire” is just the desire or urge to change this situation; to NEGATE, destroy or
consume the independent Object or Other which negates me! I desire to confront MYSELF, not
an OTHER. I further desire the SATISFACTION of seeing myself (my self-certainty) in “objective”
form; a satisfaction which comes from negating/consuming the Object before me. Recall that
immediate Self-consciousness is just an abstract empty or “pure I,” which needs filling and
objectification in order to become a concrete actual Self-consciousness, an “I = I,” a genuine
Unity of Opposites.
This means that Consciousness and its independent Object are necessary to Self-consciousness,
which it will learn in this dialectic of Desire.
In brief: There appears to be an independent Object (living or non-living) in front of me. I then
destroy or consume it. For it denies the Reality I know I am; and in my act of removing its
objective Being, I experience the SATISFACTION of a sense of mySelf AS “objective.” But the
satisfaction is short-lived. For with the destruction and disappearance of the Object, the desire
RECURS, as well as the need for a new independent Object, whose destruction will again give
only a temporary satisfaction.
Two things result. One: it is impossible to do away with the independent Object; an Object must
always remain, if there is to be satisfaction. Two: since the Object must remain – that I may see
and have myself in objective form and be a real Self-consciousness – and it is futile for me to
negate the Object (and negate objects forever) – the ONLY solution is to have an Object that not
only remains but NEGATES ITSELF! – That is, that allows ME to see myself in it; so that in
confronting it I am in relation only with MYSELF!
This Object can only be another Consciousness, a living Self-consciousness. That is, an Object
which is also a “Subject,” the same as I am. “Reciprocal RECOGNITION” between two selves is
the only solution.

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TWO: MASTER/SLAVE RECOGNITION.
“SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS exists in and for itself when … it so exists for another; it exists only in
being acknowledged (111).” This is how the section “INDEPENDENCE AND DEPENDENCE OF SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS: LORDSHIP AND BONDAGE” begins.

Our first question is: What does it mean to be “recognized” by someone? – a question not
considered by most commentators.
First, a Thing or mere Object cannot “recognize you or acknowledge your existence.” Only a
Subject or Consciousness can do so – i.e. a thing, body or object which also has Consciousness (a
“Subject-Object”).
Second, for someone (a Subject, Person) to acknowledge your existence means they regard you
as a SUBJECT, like themselves, and not an Object or Thing; thus an IDENTITY is established; each
experiences himself “doubled”, existing Here and also There. Because of this “identity” between
you, you now see yourSELF in the Object (the other Person) before you; you have actualized
your Self-consciousness; you are confronted by an Object or Other in which you see nothing but
yourself. Also, you yourself know that YOU are conscious and free, are a Subject and not a mere
Object; but you DON’T know if the Object confronting you (which looks like you) is a Subject and
consciousness as well; you also don’t know if the Object or Other (who MAY be a Subject) sees
YOU as a subject and not just a Thing.
—For someone NOT to acknowledge or recognize you means that they do NOT regard you as a
Subject or Consciousness (like themselves); i.e. as a free being, independent of the natural order
of things, but rather as a mere Object, Thing, or Body – no different from a tree, an ashtray, or
dog – i.e. they regard you AS NOTHING (this is the common experience of being “ignored” or
“slighted”).
NOW we can understand WHY a confrontation of two selves (in the primeval forest or state of
nature) results in a “fight to the death” or “life and death struggle.”
Simply put: I have just finished consuming Objects and turning them into myself. I – a Subject
and free being – now have before me an Object which also appears to be a Subject like myself.
My desire is to see only myself in this other Subject; I desire to be RECOGNIZED by him, for him
to see me as a Subject, a free “Being-for-myself,” and not just an Object or Body. Of course, he
has the same desire. Indeed, each wants to be RECOGNIZED by the Other, but is unwilling to
RECOGNIZE the Other in turn.
However, How can each know that the Other is really a Free Subject and not just another Object
to be consumed and destroyed? –There is no other way than for both of them to RISK their
lives, to try to kill each other, in a fight to the death. Risking their life is the PROOF that they are
indifferent to their lives and natural being, that they are MORE than just their bodies: they are
free conscious Subjects. The final outcome of this “fight to the death” is the famous
“Master/Slave” dialectic: one of the combatants prefers LIFE to death and non-being and
becomes the SLAVE or servant of the Victor, who becomes his Master.
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In brief: here we have a “Recognition” which is not equal or reciprocal but one-sided and
asymmetric. The Master is recognized by the Slave as a Free and Independent Subject; but the
Master recognizes the Slave as only a Dependent Unfree Object. However, the Master, being
recognized by the Slave who is only an Object and not a Subject, is NOT truly recognized and
does NOT see himself IN his Object, the Slave.
What happens then is the opposite of what is expected: the Slave, not the Master, becomes
INDEPENDENT and free. The Master just consumes, uses, and negates the offerings of the Slave,
and remains in Desire and Ego. The Slave transcends Desire and egotism by serving and working
FOR another and not himself, and by fashioning Things and imprinting his FORM upon them (a
table, chair, house). In a word, the Slave gets to see himSELF in the enduring Objects he has
produced, and thereby gets a sense of his independence and freedom (unavailable to the
Master, who remains DEPENDENT on the Slave). We now advance to the last moment of the
dialectic.

THREE: THE FREEDOM OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. https://youtu.be/NNTVwLMTh_Q

First, we must note that a TRUE reciprocal recognition between two selves, which Hegel calls
“SPIRIT,” has yet to occur; it will begin to occur in parts of “Reason” and will be perfected at the
conclusion of “Spirit” in “Evil and its Forgiveness.”
In this last section we will briefly describe the world-views of the three shapes and their
respective attitudes towards the world, i.e. the “Object” of consciousness, destined to become
ONE with Self-consciousness. All three of these (pre-medieval and medieval) shapes are
informed essentially by the same independent and free Self-consciousness achieved by the Slave
in the previous dialectic, a Self-consciousness rooted in the freedom of THOUGHT (and
devotion). “We are [now] in the presence of … a consciousness which … is aware of itself as
essential being, a being which THINKS or is a free Self-consciousness (120).”
First STOICISM. “Its principle is that consciousness is a being that THINKS, and that
consciousness holds something to be important, or true and good, only insofar as it THINKS it to
be such (121).” To the Stoic the world as such, in all its complexity, detail, and difference, means
NOTHING; only THINKING is important, for when he THINKS, whether in chains or on the throne,
he is absolutely FREE. And this because in Thinking I am in relation to an Object, namely a
THOUGHT, which is not different from me but in fact is myself!

The problem with the Stoic is that he lives only in his interior life, his mind, and is aloof from the
actual world and everything in it. He has “only the Concept of freedom, and not the living reality
of freedom itself! (122)” He has yet to achieve real Freedom, which happens only when the
being of the world is NEGATED or made IDEAL (and NOT remaining a NOT-I in opposition to the
Self, which restricts his freedom) OR when the world is revealed to be the same as himself – to
be his own Reason in objective form. Hence “[The Stoics’] abstract freedom is only the
incomplete NEGATION of Otherness [or the world] (122).”
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Second, “[It is] SKEPTICISM,” says Hegel, “[that] is the realization of that of which Stoicism was
only the Concept, and is the actual experience of what freedom of thought is (123).” In effect,
the Skeptic engages with the world and shows, by skeptical “equipollent” (pro and con)
argument, how objects are not real but only appearance. Skepticism, Hegel says, is in fact “the
dialectical movement which Sense-certainty, Perception, and Understanding each is,” and is also
what is unessential in the Master-Slave relationship. “[This] dialectic,” Hegel continues, “MAKES
this Other which claims to be Real VANISH … [indeed it] causes to vanish not only objective
reality as such, but its own relationship to it (124).”
The problem with the Skeptic is that he is always in a state of CONTRADICTION. At one time his is
“a consciousness that is universal and self-identical [as it is] the NEGATION of all singularity and
all difference (125).” At another time it’s one that is NOT self-identical, but a “casual, confused
medley, [and] the dizziness of a perpetually self-engendered disorder (125).” On the one hand,
the Skeptic affirms the nothingness of ethical principles, but on the other hand he “lets his
behavior be governed by these same principles.”
Next we have “a new shape of consciousness which BRINGS TOGETHER the two thoughts which
Skepticism holds apart (126)” —
The UNHAPPY (DIVIDED) CONSCIOUSNESS. This consciousness (of a medieval cloistered monk)
is divided and unhappy because, as changeable and finite, it cannot achieve a UNITY with its
unchangeable divine Other located in a remote beyond. Here we have an opposition of
UNIVERSAL (God) and INDIVIDUAL (man) and the effort to overcome it by Prayer, Work, and
Penitence. This new shape thus has three moments.
Briefly, the problem with PRAYER is that the emphasis is on feeling and not thought and reason –
“as devotion, its thinking is no more than the chaotic jingling of bells or a mist of warm incense
(131).” However, it has made an advance upon Stoicism (which avoids individuality) by being a
UNITY of pure thinking (or devotion) and individuality. It also knows that the Unchangeable has
taken on the form of “individuality” (in Christ’s incarnation, as the Son of God). But because the
incarnation was in the remote past and the present divine Individuality lives in the beyond, the
goal, Unity, remains unattained.
The problem with the monk’s WORK and labor in the fields is that while on the one hand the
monk feels closer to God in that he regards the world, the fields, and the gifts they offer as
sanctified by God, on the other hand he views the enjoyment of these gifts as a form of pride.
Finally there is the problem with PENITENCE. In order to achieve the union of his particular
individuality with the Unchangeable universal, the monk feels he has to NEGATE his Being-for-
himself and renounce his individual WILL. To do so he enlists a mediator or Priest to help him by
renouncing his will and surrendering all decision-making responsibility to the Priest. But this
does not work once he realizes that HE is the one who has surrendered his Will TO the Priest,
etc., – thus his Will has NOT in fact been surrendered or negated.

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BUT! As Hegel says, “the surrender of one’s Will is only from one aspect NEGATIVE, … in itself it
is at the same time POSITIVE [for it is really] the positing of one’s Will AS the Will of an Other
[God; hence of one’s] Will NOT as a particular but as a UNIVERSAL WILL [namely, the Will of
God] (138).” And this is a unity of INDIVIDUAL and UNIVERSAL WILL which Hegel will call
“REASON” – which is a unity effected by the mediator or priest, resulting not only in a UNITY of
Consciousness and Self-consciousness but in Consciousness becoming certain of itself as ALL
REALITY!
Next lecture we will begin our study of “C (AA) REASON,” with “A: Observing Reason.”

THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 4
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “C: (AA) REASON (A)”
https://youtu.be/iZ6K53ZiGyA

Welcome! Last time we discussed “B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.” Today we will take up “C (AA)
REASON” and its first section, “(A) Observing Reason,” and make our transition to “(B) Active
Reason” and “(C) Practical Reason.”

C. (AA) REASON.
Hegel tells us that “REASON is the certainty of Consciousness that it is ALL REALITY (140).” But
What exactly does this mean? And How and when is it reached and realized?
— Now, we have said Two things: First, that (B) Self-consciousness or the CONCEPT is the end of
the book; all that remains to be done is to transfer the remaining Objects of consciousness into
the CONCEPT. And Second, that this happens when Self-consciousness and Consciousness
become ONE or unified – which happens in the Phenomenology’s last division, Part “C”, and it
occurs 4 times and in 4 forms: as Reason, Spirit, Religion, and Absolute Knowing. The final
unification takes place in “Absolute Knowing” and is called “the Absolute Concept” – and it
results from the achievement of the “RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION” which is “absolute SPIRIT.” It
is the “I = I” of Self-consciousness where TWO selves “recognize” each other (112). And it is THIS
which provides the KEY to the whole Phenomenology.
Now, 4 points that will answer our 2 questions and also help us understand the entire
Phenomenology.
ONE: “RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION,” the key to the book, is a unity of Consciousness and Self-
consciousness where Object and Self are ONE: I am relating to an Object which is at the same
time mySelf! This is Infinity and the Unity of Opposites. In short, “I am you and me at the same
time or equally.” And, “YOU are me and you equally, at the same time!” Yet, I am ONE, a
UNITY!” I am a “Unity of Opposites!” I am UNIVERSAL – ALL. I exist Here … and also There,
outside myself! – IN and AS You! And THIS is precisely what Hegel calls “SPIRIT!” – The ONE
CONSCIOUSNESS or “I” which splits into TWO. In Hegel’s words:
“The reconciling YES – in which the two ‘I’s let go their opposed existence – IS the existence of
the ‘I’ which has expanded into a duality!” … [It is] a RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION which is
absolute SPIRIT [or God] (408-9).”
Again, We are both each other, at the same time. As Hegel says: “I regard them [other people] as
myself and myself as them (214).” More strongly, at Enc. §159 Hegel says: “Thinking [or the
Concept] means that in the Other, I meet with mySelf,” and that I (the Concept) recognize YOU
“as my OWN Being and Creation [Setzen].”

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Yet, as Hegel also says, “I only really exist (in and for myself) … insofar as YOU recognize ME as
really existing (in and for myself) (111)!” And yet, YOU [who are equally the Concept (cf. 408)]
also recognize ME as YOUR own Being and Creation! That is, in reality (on the metaphysical
level) I AM YOU AND YOU ARE ME. – I am at once MY own Being (because You recognize me)
and YOUR own Being — and vice versa! In the Encyclopedia Hegel calls this “Universal Self-
consciousness” (cf. Enc. §436 and zus.).
— Also, you will find this all-crucial TRUTH explicated in a powerful “RECOGNITION MEDITATION
EXERCISE,” which can be done between Two or more people, in my book, The Jedi Handbook of
Global Education on page 274, which in my view, will help deepen your understanding of the
Phenomenology and of Absolute Knowledge.
TWO: It is also important to know that “RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION,” the goal of the
Phenomenology, is NOT achieved in part (B) Self-consciousness, in the Master/Slave dialectic;
nor is it achieved in part (C) Reason, where the Self or Consciousness is All Reality. It is only
achieved at the end of SPIRIT in part (C), in “evil and forgiveness” (409). – Thus, you may wonder
Why it wasn’t achieved in part (C) Reason where the Self is ALL Reality, both itself AND its Object
(144)? The following will shed light on this. The key thing is that “Recognition” requires not ONE
but TWO Selves or “I”s who reciprocally recognize each other!
Thus: in part A: Consciousness, we have just ONE I. In part B: Self-consciousness, we begin with
ONE I (as Desire), then have TWO I’s (in Master/Slave recognition), and end with just ONE I (in
Freedom of Self-consciousness. Part C: Reason begins with only ONE I in A. Observing Reason,
then we have TWO I’s in Reason’s B: The Actualization of Rational Self-consciousness … (cf.
§347), and also TWO I’s in Reason’s C: Individuality which takes itself as Real …, where we
achieve a Universal-Individual unity and transition to Part C: Spirit, where we first have a nation
or community of I’s, whose essence is a “Reciprocal Recognition” of ALL I’s, but which is only
achieved, as said, at the end in “evil and forgiveness” (with absolute Spirit and God). Part C:
Religion also implicitly has the Truth of the reciprocal recognition of TWO I’s (oneself and the
“God-man”) but in the inadequate form of picture-thinking, which is overcome in part C:
Absolute Knowledge, IN the Absolute Concept in which all that preceded is “aufgehoben”
(negated yet preserved), and which includes the TWO I’s at the end of “Spirit,” – meaning that
though the Phenomenology ends with just ONE Self, ONE Knowing, ONE Absolute Concept, the
TWO I’s (indeed ALL I’s!) are included in this ONE I! — cf., “it is ‘I’, that is THIS and no other ‘I’,
and [at the same time, a mediated or] UNIVERSAL I (486).”
THREE: Thus, as to Why the goal of Recognition was not achieved in C: Reason (as the certainty
of being ALL reality – a unity of Consciousness and Self-consciousness), the answer is that
Reason is only “in itself” or potentially the certainty of being ALL reality, not yet its actuality or
actualization! — (Remember also that each shape, e.g. Reason, always begins in its “immediacy,”
oblivious to the stages that preceded; so, WE know that Reason is all reality, IT does not, it only
“intuits” this – it begins only as “the instinct of Reason”). — Reason’s actualization happens for

29
the first time in C: SPIRIT, in ethical life – that is, in a concrete actual historical Nation of “I”s! As
Hegel says:
“It is … in the life of a people or nation that the Concept of … Reason’s actualization … has its
complete reality.” Hegel further says that Reason is fully actualized, “[when I behold] in the
independence of the Other complete UNITY with it, and have for my Object the free THINGhood
of the Other [and have HIM] as my OWN Being-for-MYSELF (212)!”
So, Reason is fully actualized only in C: SPIRIT or the ethical life of a nation. And, What again is
“Spirit”? “Spirit” is a “Universal Self-consciousness that takes itself to be actual IN another
Consciousness … and only in this unity with objective being IS it Self-consciousness (212).” Spirit
is thus: “a recognized and acknowledged Self-consciousness which has its own self-certainty in
the other free Self-consciousness [opposed to it], and has its Truth precisely in that Other!”
FOUR: For a correct understanding of the meaning of “REASON being the certainty of
Consciousness that it is ALL REALITY,” one needs only to read Hegel’s key statements in the
opening section entitled “The Certainty and Truth of Reason” in which he: distinguishes “true”
from “false” Idealism, defines Reason as “I am I”, and connects all this with “the Category.” Here
are the key statements:
“[Reason] is certain … that everything actual is none other than itself; Reason’s thinking is itself
directly reality … its relationship to reality being that of IDEALISM (139).”
Idealism’s certainty that Reason is all reality, Hegel says, is thus expressed: “‘I am I’, in the sense
that the ‘I’ which is an Object for me is the sole Object, is ALL REALITY and ALL that is present
(140).”
This “I” which is All Reality and the “sole Truth (141)” is: “[not]merely an Object that withdraws
itself from other Objects which retain their worth alongside it [the view of “false Idealism” and
Hegelian “realists”]; on the contrary, [the “I” is] an Object such that ANY OTHER OBJECT
WHATEVER IS A NON-BEING!”
– This pretty much settles the issue! “Realist” Hegelians and commentators should also know
that Hegel unequivocally states: “Nature [Matter] has vanished (Enc. §381)!” and, “Spirit
[indeed!] is the universal immateriality of Matter (Enc. §389 and zus.)!” – Not to mention, in the
present section’s end, that “The THING is I,” and “The I is a THING!”
—All crucial is the DISTINCTION between what WE know (we who have gone through the
development of consciousness in A: Consciousness and B: Self-consciousness) AND what the
shape of Reason ITSELF knows, which has just come on the scene (in its immediacy after the
Middle Ages and its “Unhappy Consciousness”!). – WE know that only the “I” is reality, while IT
knows this only “intuitively,” as “the instinct of Reason!” —Many commentators do not fully
realize this important DISTINCTION – and do not get what “Reason as All Reality” really means! –
(that “I am I,” that the I is my ONLY object, that all else is NON-Being! Etc.). It is just because
Hegel says that Reason (consciousness) is now “interested in the world’s permanence, etc,” that

30
they assume the world has TRUE INDEPENDENT BEING apart from the I! — The only thing in the
World (the Not-I) that possesses “TRUE INDEPENDENT BEING” are Other I’s or Selves (which are
equally the CONCEPT and ALL REALITY). So yes, there is in fact a reality absolutely independent
of the I, Knowing, Self-consciousness — but this independent reality is just ANOTHER SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS (or ANOTHER ABSOLUTE CONCEPT)!
Again, Hegel takes pains to distinguish “true” from “false” IDEALISM,” for which an OTHER than I
exists! He clearly states that there are NOT TWO Realities, The I and the World (“Things”) – this
is the “false” Idealism Hegel criticizes! No. Hegel means what he says. Reason, Consciousness, is
literally ALL REALITY! – Indeed the “Absolute Concept” IS all reality (cf. the Science of Logic, 826,
“the Concept is alles!”). The purpose of the remainder of the book (C: Reason, Spirit, Religion,
Absolute Knowing) is precisely to show this! To show HOW the Truth – Reason, the I as all reality
– gets actualized!
— Finally, it is in the CATEGORY (i.e. of KANT) that all this comes together (cf., “I think the
Concept [Category] of the Object [Being]” (B132, 166), hence, Concept and Object, Category and
Being are one). And the “Category” means that “Self-consciousness and Being are the same
essence [or are one and the same] (142).” Hegel adds tellingly that, “It is only the one-sided,
spurious [or false] Idealism that lets this UNITY again come on the scene as consciousness, on
one side, confronted by an ‘in-itself’, on the other (142).” – An “in-itself,” Hegel notes, called a
“Thing,” “Thing in itself,” “Anstoss,” or empirical entity.

OK! C (AA) REASON: https://youtu.be/50aPuODnzrU

Part “C (AA) REASON” has three parts: A: Observing Reason, B: [Active Reason, or] The
Actualization of Rational Self-consciousness through its own Activity, and C: [Practical Reason,
or] Individuality which takes itself as Real in and for itself.
First a Summary of the whole:
Reason as All Reality wants and expects to see itself in everything. So it begins in “Theory” as
Observing Reason seeking to see itself in Nature and the Self in the form of classifications and
laws. When this proves to be impossible, Reason then shifts to “Practice” and tries to see itself in
others and realize itself through its own Actions. The final result is an Individuality-fused-with-
Universality (“U.I”) which becomes the immediate ground and starting point of the next section,
BB: SPIRIT, the GROUND of all that has preceded, an actual historical Nation or Ethical
Substance—Reich Gottes or “the Kingdom of God” (“The Jedi Order”). Hence, we move here (in
(B) and (C)) from a “natural self-seeking Individual” to a “Universal ethical Individual.”
Now, part (A) OBSERVING REASON itself has three parts: (a) Observation of Nature: inorganic
and organic, (b) Observation of Self-Consciousness: logical and psychological laws, and (c)
Observation of Self-Consciousness: physiognomy and phrenology.

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Our four questions here and their brief answers are the following:
ONE: What is the connection between the Minister (priest, middle term) and Reason’s certainty
of being All Reality and All Truth?
—In brief: The minister (by act of pardon and forgiveness) brings together into a unity the two
extremes, the believing monk (or “unhappy consciousness” that has renounced/negated itself,
its will) and the distant unchangeable God (REALITY, the POINT). This unity Hegel’s calls
“REASON,” the certainty that Consciousness is All Reality. – Important is that: “The negation of
the Individual (the monk) is the Universal [God, as All Reality] (139).”
TWO: How does Reason’s attitude toward “the world” differ from that of the preceding (pre-
Medieval and Medieval) shapes?
—In brief: The shapes of the Freedom of Self-consciousness viewed the world as opposed to its
freedom and wanted to “negate” it in its transiency. Reason, on the contrary, is interested in the
world’s permanency because as “ALL reality” it knows it will find only itself in the world.
THREE: Why does Reason find it hard to discover classifications and laws in Nature and Self-
consciousness (or Mind)?
First: (a) Observation of Nature: inorganic-organic.
— As a side Note: We will see here exactly HOW Modern Science started and continues to this
day. In brief: After the Medieval’s “Age of Faith,” the scientific revolution and “Age of Reason”
came on the scene, as the quest to discover order, universals, laws and Reason in Nature – in
effect, to bring the infinite variety of sense-Individuals into Unity.
—The problem with “classification” into kinds were the exceptions and anomalies
(Individuals/specimens that were neither plant nor animal, etc). The problem with finding “laws”
(which require universality and necessary connection) was that experiment and induction (from
a few examples) could only yield “probability” never universality and necessity; and there is no
necessary connection between, for example, the concept of water and the structure of a fish (as
in the law: “Organisms in water have the structure of a fish,” etc).
Second: (b) Observation of Self-Consciousness: logical and psychological laws.
—In brief: LOGICAL LAWS: These are the Laws of Thought (or “formal logic”), e.g. of Identity,
Non-contradiction, and the Excluded Middle. The problem is (1) Observation just FINDS these
“laws” which at most show how we DO happen to think, but not why we MUST think in these
ways (necessity is lacking); and (2) Observation also regards these “laws” as SEPARATE from each
other, and this contradicts the UNITY of the “I” or Mind.
—PSYCHOLOGICAL LAWS (of Social Psychology) concern: Why a person “acts” or “is” the way
she is. In short, there can be no necessary “laws” correlating or linking a person’s behavior to the
social world and society’s norms, customs, and habits because a person can either freely choose
to conform or not to conform to its norms.
Third: (c) Observation of Self-Consciousness: physiognomy and phrenology.
—In brief: PHYSIOGNOMY and PHRENOLOGY both claim to have laws linking the OUTER and the

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INNER, Self-consciousness (Mind) and its Body – physiognomy with a person’s Face and Hands,
phrenology with a person’s Skull (its shape and features); both are for Hegel "pseudo-sciences.”
The problem is the physiognomist is not able to observe or perceive a person’s inner self, only
her face, and the phrenologist is in the same situation, hence the “inner and outer” correlations
they make are just their personal opinions, not scientific laws.
FOUR: The Result of (c), and this whole section, is that “self-consciousness (the “I”) is a Thing (a
“skull”).” What does this mean?
—In brief: It means that Reason or the Category is realized, as the unity of Subject and Object, of
Self-Consciousness and Thing (“skull”) or Being. Hence the “I” or Self-Consciousness is All Reality
or everything I see. Thus the new Object is Self-Consciousness—that is, another Self-
Consciousness. Reason shifts from Theory to Practice (and again, to the “interpersonal” sphere);
from trying to “find” itself in the world, to trying to “produce” itself by its own action (for
example: the man “on the make,” via pleasure, hedonism, and seduction; cf. “Faust and
Gretchen”).
OK, (A) OBSERVING REASON: https://youtu.be/RepMjC8cnCE
Reason, as we begin here, is just the beginning of the process of Reason’s actualization as All
Reality. It will try to see itself in the Objects before it, and eventually the Object before it will be
another SELF, leading to RECOGNITION, the goal and end of the book. So, only the CONCEPT, the
SELF, exists – it is All Reality. In fact, when two selves confront each other, what we have is ONE
Concept (as All Reality) confronting another Concept (as All Reality).
—Reason then is implicitly all reality. We will watch it gradually actualize itself as it tries to find
itself in Nature and Self-consciousness. It will do so by bringing the scattered individualities of
Nature and Self-consciousness under UNIVERSALS, kinds and Laws. Our general question again
is: Why does Reason as “observer” find it hard to discover classifications and laws in Nature and
Self-consciousness (or Mind)?
First, (a) Observation of Nature: inorganic and organic.
What is especially important to know is that Hegel is not here criticizing the Science of Nature
per se but only the observing reason of the empirical “sciences” as they developed from the 16 th
century up to Hegel’s time. Hegel is NOT saying it is impossible to obtain a knowledge of Nature,
but rather that a knowledge of Nature (and Spirit) CAN be attained but ONLY by means of the
CONCEPT! – or TRUE speculative Reason, not an “instinctive Reason” confined to the senses and
mere observation. — We will now look at SIX attempts!

ONE: DESCRIPTION. Observing consciousness begins by “describing” individual things, but soon
finds that this activity never ends and does not satisfy Reason. It is also not sure what is and is
not an important object to describe; also realizing that some inorganic objects completely resist
description as they constantly change in their relations to other things. This forces observation
to distinguish between what is truly “essential” and “unessential” about an object and its
sensuous properties. And this leads to

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TWO: The CLASSIFICATION of things into Kinds (into the Universals of “genus” and “species”).
One problem concerns: What is essential for “knowledge”? and, What is essential for the “things
themselves”? The latter is important, for our artificial classification system really should accord
with Nature’s own system; our system should reflect a thing’s and its species “differentia”
(essential characteristics) themselves! Thus, “the distinctive marks of animals, e.g., are taken
from their claws and teeth (149), since this is not only how WE distinguish one animal from
another, but how animals maintain and distinguish themselves from each other.”
—The problem is the differentia or distinguishing marks of a genus or species (in a system of
classification) are fixed, self-same, and unchanging (i.e., firm and settled). Thus, observation
comes across “borderline individuals” which even have the features of opposite species, and
hence become unclassifiable, being neither plant nor animal, but also plant and animal.
—Reason, in pursuit of itself, of what is Universal in Nature, will next seek for the
THREE: LAW that will explain the sensuous Phenomenon, holding that that the Truth of the Law
is found in Experience – which necessarily leads to Experiment and “induction.” By “Law” here,
Hegel means a necessary causal connection between two things or “sides” (e.g. a bird and its
element, air; or an object’s outer and inner features). A “law” thus is the same as an
“explanation”; it attempts to answer the question: Why does something exist the way it does,
i.e., have the properties it has or behave the way it does?
Hegel is quick to point out the problem with the confirmation of Law by “experiment.”
Observation believes that to know that “stones fall when raised above the ground and dropped,
you don’t have to make the experiment with ALL stones, just a great number (152).” But, Hegel
says, this “induction,” or generalization from a few instances, can never lead to CERTAINTY –
only to PROBABILITY.
Now, because inorganic things consist in sensuous properties and relations which “bleed” into
other things and alter their identity, they lack the unity, self-identity, and free universality of
Reason. Hence, observation’s next object will be
FOUR: The ORGANISM or Living Thing – which DOES maintain its unity, self-identity, and free
“processive” universality. Observing consciousness will first seek for Laws that relate Organic
Nature to Inorganic (elemental) Nature. For example, the influence of air, water, earth, zones,
and climate on individual animals will yield laws such as: animals belonging to air have the
nature of birds, to water the nature of fish, to northern latitudes thick hairy pelts, and so forth
(laws that G.R. Treviranus espoused, a contemporary of Hegel). The problem is that there is no
necessary connection, for example, between the concept of “north” and “thick hairy pelts,” and
the concepts of “sea” and “air” with the structure of fish and birds. Hegel also here notes that
these “laws” are so superficial they hardly do justice to the detail, complexity, and range of the
animals under observation.
—So far, Reason has been unable to find itself in Nature. Therefore, since a Law, a cause and
effect relation, could not be established between the organism and its environment, observation
will next move to a cause and effect relation WITHIN the organism itself, which is called a

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FIVE: TELEOLOGICAL RELATION. That is to say, the organism “preserves itself” in its relation to
an other. This means it is its OWN END (“telos” or purpose) or the “cause of itself,” or “cause
and effect” at once. The purpose or “end” of its activity (eating and drinking) is not something
Other than itself, but simply ITSELF. “The organism does not produce something, but only
preserves itself; or what is produced is as much already present as produced (156),” – the
organism is thus the unity of cause and effect. Hegel further notes that since the difference
between what it IS and what it SEEKS (its End) is a “difference which is NO difference” – what we
are observing in the organism is the same thing as “Self-consciousness,” which is also the
CONCEPT or REASON itself! Thus, for the first time self-consciousness AS Reason beholds itself in
its Object, the organism. This is the “infinite” it has been seeking (146, §240): it distinguishes
between “itself and what it has found, [which is] a distinction which is none (157).”
—The problem is that observing Reason, as only “the instinct of Reason,” does not see this –
that the organism has its End within itself – instead it locates this End OUTSIDE the organism in a
transcendent Intelligence or in environmental factors.
SIX: THE OUTER/INNER RELATION. Having thus failed in its previous attempts to find itself in its
Object, observing Reason now tries to find LAW in the relations between the Outer and Inner
aspects of the organism: specifically, the Law that “the OUTER is the Expression of the INNER.”
The “INNER” comprises its organic properties or functions: SENSIBILITY, IRRITABILITY, and
REPRODUCTION. Sensibility is the organism’s capacity of self-feeling and other-feeling;
Irritability, its capacity to react to stimuli (feelings and sensations) coming from outside itself;
and Reproduction, the organism’s capacity to maintain or preserve itself as an individual and as
a genus, by producing other individuals.
The “OUTER” are those actual shapes or systems that correspond to the INNER’s functions: the
Nervous system to Sensibility, the Muscular system to Irritability, and the Visceral (digestive and
reproductive) systems to Reproduction.
—The problem with Law here, is that there is no clear way to connect the observable Outer with
the Inner.
FIRST, there cannot be a one-to-one correlation between Sensibility and the Nervous system (its
expression). This is because “sensibility extends beyond the nervous system and permeates ALL
the other systems of the organism”; also, Sensibility is a “universal” property or function and
hence is NOT separated from “reaction or irritability, and reproduction (162).”
SECONDLY, because Sensibility, Irritability, and Reproduction are universal pervasive fluid
properties of the INNER, they cannot be expressed in the OUTER as distinct and separate
“anatomical” systems, a division which contradicts the UNITY of the organism. In Hegel’s words:
“In the[Outer] systems of shape as such, the organism is apprehended from the abstract aspect
of a DEAD existence; the organism’s moments so taken pertain to ANATOMY and the CORPSE,
not to knowledge and the living organism (166).”
—Thus Reason, in the empirical observation of Nature is unable to produce any valid Laws per se
and is thus confined to making clever remarks, interesting connections, and a friendly approach
to the CONCEPT. But, Hegel says, “clever remarks are not a knowledge of necessity, [and]
35
interesting connections go no further than being ‘of interest’, while the interest is still nothing
more than a subjective opinion about Reason (179).”
(b) Observation of Self-consciousness in its purity and in its relation to external actuality.
Logical and Psychological Laws. https://youtu.be/zd961nXoFQ4
Observation will now turn to Self-consciousness and try to find Laws and universality there.
—LOGICAL LAWS: The object of observation is now Self-consciousness in its purity as “pure
thought” and the “Laws of Pure Thought,” such as Identity, Non-contradiction, and the Excluded
Middle. Hegel begins here by alluding to the transition from Nature to Spirit he discusses at the
close of his Science of Nature. The CONCEPT or Universal as genus in Nature is realized in the
animal organism, but only inadequately – because Nature is the domain only of sheer
“individuals” and because the Concept is not yet freely FOR ITSELF; it achieves this for the first
time in Spirit or Mind when the genus or universal becomes THOUGHT.
—Hegel next repeats the Truth stated in the earlier section on “Understanding” (80) that
Thought’s, the Concept’s, FORM contains also the CONTENT (ALL Content) within itself and thus
is also ALL REALITY and ALL THAT EXISTS.
—The problem here concerns the empirical-psychological WAY observation takes up the FORM
of thought and its Laws. “[Observation gives these Laws] the character of something FOUND [or
given, and] that merely IS … [and as] a multitude of detached necessities [with a] fixed content
(181).” —That the Laws of Thought are something “FOUND” means first that they are without
NECESSITY; at most they (perhaps) show us how we do HAPPEN to think, but not that we MUST
necessarily think in these ways. Second, the fact that these laws are separated and detached
from one another CONTRADICTS “the UNITY of Self-consciousness [and] of Thought and Form in
general (181).”
—The real Truth of these “laws of thought” (and of ALL thought-determinations) is that they are
simply “vanishing moments in the UNITY of Thought,” – something which receives its verification
in “speculative philosophy” or the Science of Logic, where Hegel in fact even points out that
these so-called “laws” not only contradict each other, but that no one on the planet thinks in
accordance with them! (cf. the “law of identity,” according to which, “A plant is … a plant,” The
moon is … the moon!” etc.). The Science of Logic, Hegel concludes, is just the development of
the ONE THOUGHT (the CONCEPT) in which these “laws” are shown to be only “single vanishing
moments whose Truth is only the whole movement of thought [which Hegel in fact says is]
KNOWING ITSELF!”
—PSYCHOLOGICAL LAWS (of Social Psychology): The key here is found in Hegel’s opening
statement that: “Psychology contains the collection of laws in accordance with which Spirit
relates itself in various ways to the various modes of its actuality as an otherness already given
(182).” The mistake of psychology is to assume that the TWO sides of its laws are already given
and independently existent APART from each other, when in fact they are inextricably fused with
each other! For psychology, on the one side is the INDIVIDUAL spirit with his distinct character
traits, “faculties, inclinations, passions” existing “in the mind like things in a bag (182).” On the
other side are the mores of its society, the given circumstances, habits, customs, religion, and
36
ways of thinking of the social world confronting it.
– The problem is that the Individual can act either “passively” or “actively” towards the world. –
“Passively,” it “allows free play to the stream of the actual world flowing in upon it (184),”
thereby conforming to the world; “actively,” it breaks off this stream and transforms it, it
opposes and rebels against the world, making the world conform to itself! Hence, because of the
contingency involved in How the Individual will choose to react to the world and its mores
(actively or passively), there can be no determinist laws between the TWO – laws which can
explain Why the Individual behaves as he does. “Laws” lacking universality and necessity are not
laws. —A mores or custom cannot dictate that ALL Individuals will accept and conform to it, or
that ALL will reject it. Nor can psychology know How a character trait or passion will “influence”
an Individual’s behavior toward a given mores – which totally depends on How he reacts to it (–
it is the Individual who has the final say).
– Hegel concludes by saying, not only are no psychological laws between the TWO sides possible
because they are “indifferent” to each other, but in fact, there ARE no TWO sides, no separate
GIVEN sides or realities to speak of! There is only ONE Reality – “the UNITY of the world as
GIVEN and the world [the Individual] has MADE (185).” In fact – and this is THE principle of
Modern Philosophy – THERE IS NO WORLD AS SUCH! – Rather, only the or “a” world IN and FOR
a “Consciousness.” That is, there IS only the “world of the Individual” or of “Individuals.”
(c) Observation of the relation of Self-Consciousness to its immediate actuality. Physiognomy
and Phrenology.
Observation, unable to find a Law and correlation between what a person is and does (his inner
character) AND the outer social world, will now turn logically inwards. It will now try to find Laws
which connect a person’s inner character and his Body or immediate actuality, and consider the
person by himself independently of the social world – namely, his facial features (the object of
Physiognomy, promoted by J.C. Lavater) and the features of his skull (the object of Phrenology,
promoted by D.F.G. Gall).
—In brief: the physiognomist claims to possess Laws which correlate the outer lines and features
of one’s face with one’s inner character and intentions. The problem is the physiognomist is not
able to observe or perceive one’s inner self, only one’s face. Hence, “the laws it discovers tell us
nothing … it is idle chatter or merely the voicing of one’s opinion (193).”
—The phrenologist believes he can tell what a person is really like just by observing the “bumps
and hollows” of his Skull; this “bump” indicates a murderer, this “hollow” a cuckold, etc. Here
too these correlations turn out to be just an opinion. Also, when inner and outer conflict and
plainly refute his “Law” – the person SHOULD act like a rogue but DOES NOT – the phrenologist
will claim that this “bump” and disposition has not yet been developed, i.e. “is not present but it
ought to be present (204).” The phrenologist thus plainly admits that a person’s character
cannot be revealed by his skull. The conclusion is that a THING (the Skull) cannot show what Self-
Consciousness (which is not inert but active) is. Hence consciousness will “no longer aim to FIND
itself immediately, but to PRODUCE itself by its own activity (209).”

37
Finally, that “self-consciousness (the “I”) is a Thing (a “skull”)” means that the CATEGORY is
realized; that self-consciousness (the “I”) is ALL REALITY. “I = THING” and “THING = I.” This is, as
Hegel says, an “infinite judgment” which means that the I and the Thing are completely identical
– one and the same (cf. the Encyclopedia Logic, paragraph 215: the “subject-object” unity results
in “infinite subjectivity,” not “infinite objectivity”). As Hegel says in the Phenomenology’s
Preface: ‘To know mySelf is to know the Object, and to know the Object is to know mySelf (15,
§791)” – and in the Science of Logic: “the Idea … no longer has the Object over against it but has
internalized it [and] knows the Object as its own Self (69)!” The key, which many commentators
miss, is that up till this point in the Phenomenology the sense-THING was only “appearance” or
non-being. NOW, the Thing is I, self-consciousness, or MYSELF! Hence, I am literally ALL REALITY!
– Indeed, in the last paragraph of the Phenomenology (§808) Hegel tells us – as do Fichte and
Schelling as well! – that Spirit (Geist), our True Self, IS THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, “Spirit … exists
equally in its EXTENSION [Nature] … and in its depth, the SELF.” – And this should come as no
surprise since Hegel also says: “our true and essential Self is GOD [i.e., the ABSOLUTE, BEING
ITSELF],” (Enc. §194, Add.1).
Next time we will take up (B) ACTIVE REASON and (C) PRACTICAL REASON and make our
transition to BB. SPIRIT. We will also see the beginning of the achievement of “Reciprocal
Recognition” – but only the beginning!

THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 5
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “C: (AA) REASON (B) & (C)”
https://youtu.be/ydSP6L6yVWw

Welcome! Last time we discussed “C (AA) REASON” and its first section, “(A) Observing Reason.”
Today we will take up “(B) Active Reason” and “(C) Practical Reason” and make our transition to
“C (BB) SPIRIT.”

(B) ACTIVE REASON: “THE ACTUALIZATION OF RATIONAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH ITS

OWN ACTIVITY”

First a Review: Consciousness as REASON now knows that it is ALL REALITY – the UNITY of A:
CONSCIOUSNESS and B: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, meaning that the Object (any Object) and the
Self are ONE. The “CATEGORY” is another name for this Unity, of the “I” and “Being.” Reason
now proceeds to actualize itself as All Reality, first in the mode of Theory or Observing Reason: it
tries to find and see itself in the Objects of Nature and Self-Consciousness in the form of Laws
and Universals. When Observing Reason’s efforts prove unsuccessful it does an “about face” and
becomes “Active Reason.” It will now try to see itself in its Object and become “all reality” by
ACTING on its Object, making it conform to itself. Reason does an “about face” by taking its final
result (in Physiognomy and Phrenology) – namely, that “Self-Consciousness, the ‘I’, is a Thing (a
skull),” in its truth or true meaning: that of the “CATEGORY” as the identity of independent
Thinghood or Objectivity AND Self-Consciousness or the “I”. As Hegel says, “[Self-Consciousness]
is aware that it is in itself the objectively real world. It is no longer the immediate certainty of
being all reality, but a certainty for which the immediate … has the form of something canceled,
… the objectivity of the immediate … is Self-Consciousness itself (211).” This means (1) that
Reason’s Object – in which it expects to see itself – is now an independent Self-Consciousness,
like itself! – and (2) that since all Things are now “I” or Self-Consciousness, there are no longer
any sheer “Things” or “Not-I’s” having Being-IN-themselves in the world! What exist are only
“I’s”, a plurality of Self-Consciousnesses and nothing else!
Hegel next summarizes what will happen in the following dialectic, which will see immediate
Individual Self-Consciousness gradually becoming united with Universality, which will result in
the ethical life and substance which is SPIRIT:
“To begin with, this Active Reason is aware of itself merely as an Individual and as such must
demand and produce its reality in an Other. Then, however, its consciousness having raised itself
into Universality [above Plato’s Divided Line], it becomes UNIVERSAL Reason, and is conscious of
itself as Reason, as a consciousness that is already recognized in and for itself, which in its pure
consciousness unites ALL Self-Consciousness (211).”

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So, UNIVERSAL Reason, the final result, is a single consciousness which unites ALL Self-
Consciousness – all Individual “I’s” that comprise a Nation or ethical order, in which all selves
RECOGNIZE each other as mutually free and independent (349, 350, 177).
Thus in (B) Active Reason and (C) Practical Reason, we are on the threshold of SPIRIT. Again in
Hegel’s words:
“Thus [as we begin the dialectic of Active Reason] the Object to which Self-Consciousness is
positively related is a Self-Consciousness. The Object is in the form of Thinghood, i.e. it is
INDEPENDENT; but Self-Consciousness is certain that this independent Object [a Self-
Consciousness] is for it not something alien, and thus Self-Consciousness knows that it is in
principle RECOGNIZED by the Object. [Indeed!] it is SPIRIT which, in the duplication of its Self-
Consciousness and in the Independence of both, has the CERTAINTY of its unity with itself
(211).”
Hegel says this “certainty” – namely, of “RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION,” the goal of the
Phenomenology – must now be raised to the level of TRUTH; what is implicit must become
explicit.
Before we see how this happens, here are our two questions and their brief answers:
ONE: Reason (or Self-Consciousness) will now try to find itself and its happiness in the world and
in others through individual Action (rather than Observation and Theory).
Discuss why the three outlooks in “B: Active Reason” fail (it concerns the Individual versus the
Universal).

(a) Pleasure and Necessity. Reason first exists as an immediate natural Individual whose sole
aim is sheer sexual Pleasure and its own happiness. The problem is it wants to see itself as an
individual in the Self-consciousness confronting it, but necessity compels it to see itself as a
Universal instead, which results in its annihilation. It learns that Universality and Necessity are
essential to its Individuality.
(b) The Law of the Heart (and the Frenzy of Self-Conceit). The Individual here now has a
Universal aim, seeking not just his own but everyone’s happiness. But his efforts fail because he
wants everyone to accept and follow just the Law of his own Heart and his own social program.
When the people refuse to do so he attributes this to their being brainwashed by the media
(priests and despots) and by the “way of the world,” the self-interest of Individuals.
(c) Virtue and the Way of the World. This Individual, the “Knight of Virtue,” also has a Universal
aim: to make everyone in society “virtuous” by rooting out the Egos of self-seeking Individuals:
they should seek the universal, common GOOD, not the individual GOOD. This too fails because
the Universal Good cannot be realized without the actions of Individuals. In fact, the universal-
common GOOD and the individual GOOD are one and the same. For to help yourself is to help
others as well.

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TWO: Here in “C: Practical Reason,” Individuality, as absolute reality, expresses itself through
Action – and then uses Reason to make and test Laws (Universals) to govern its actions and
behavior.
Give a brief summary and state what the Result of this section is.

—Briefly: (a) The Spiritual Animal Kingdom. We now know that Individuality (fused with
Universality, and in plural form, as a group) is the only and absolute reality. But for the Individual
to know what’s inside herself, she must express herself by her actions in “Works.” But once her
Work is out there it can be judged and misinterpreted by others. So, to avoid this she pretends
to be interested in what interests others, in the next “Big Thing” (“The Matter in Hand,” “What
Really Matters”). But the others see through this dishonesty.
The Result is that everyone realizes that this desire to participate in the next “Big Thing” is
universal, and that the “Absolute Big Thing” is the State or Nation as a whole – The Ethical
Substance, which is the starting point of the next section, BB: SPIRIT, the unity of all individuals
in One Universal Substance, “the Kingdom of God” (The Jedi Order; see p. 110).
In brief, (b) Reason as Lawgiver and (c) Reason as Testing Laws also fail because each ethical
situation is complex and unique and because laws cannot be validated by the criterion of “non-
contradiction. For Hegel the true eternal laws and customs already exist in the ethical substance
or nation itself.

OK, let’s see how “certainty” becomes TRUTH, and the implicit becomes explicit! Remember that
INDIVIDUAL Self-Consciousness is implicitly ALL REALITY, is the “objectively real world” in its
entirety; that only selves, or “I’s”, or Individuals exist, are real; that since the Object it confronts
is a Self-Consciousness, it KNOWS it will see itself in its Object, be “recognized” by its Object and
thus be REASON as ALL REALITY, as itself and its Object at once!
We will look at three shapes of modern individualist Self-Consciousness and begin as always with
an Individual in its pure immediacy, totally bereft of Universality – at the end it will be totally
united with Universality, taking us into (C) Practical Reason. —Because all three Individuals know
they are All Reality and the essence, their End and Action will be to demand and produce their
reality in the Other before them. Reason is now sent out into the world to seek its happiness.

(a) PLEASURE AND NECESSITY. https://youtu.be/ni7HAPuhwu8

Active Reason, in its immediate shape as a pure natural Individual Self-Consciousness, can be
likened to a “Casanova” since its method of seeing itself in its Object is “seduction.” As Hegel
says, after abandoning Observation and the “shadowy existence of science, laws and principles”
it “plunges into life and indulges to the full the pure individuality in which it appears [its body]; it
does not so much MAKE its own happiness as straightway TAKE it and enjoy it (218)!”
The problem here and the reason why it fails is this: in its act of seduction it wants to “see just
itself AS THIS particular Individual in another (or see another Self-Consciousness as itself) (216).”
But in the outcome of this unity of the TWO independent Self-Consciousnesses, the opposite

41
happens! In joining its body with another’s the pleasure enjoyed is not one-sided but mutual,
hence not individual but UNIVERSAL. And this is the NECESSITY – what necessarily happens – in
every act of seduction by a Casanova or a Faust. It wanted to see itself in the Other as a
“complete” individual, a duplicate of itself; instead it does NOT experience itself in its
Individuality but rather as a UNIVERSAL, hence its “Individuality is smashed to pieces (221).”
Thus “its experience is a CONTRADICTION in which the attained reality of its Individuality sees
itself destroyed by the negative essence confronting it … [which is an Object that] has no
CONTENT (219).” The Object, the woman seduced, has no content (1) because she is just a pure
“pleasure object” – Casanova is only interested in her body, not her name, who she is, her
accomplishments, family history, etc. Also (2) as the “poorest form of self-realizing Spirit” its
pleasure Object is only the “abstraction of Reason” or the “abstract CATEGORY” whose sole
content is the “empty abstractions Unity, Difference, and Relation (143, §236) – the exact
opposite of the “fullness of life” that it wanted! It thought it had “taken the plunge from dead
Theory into Life” but has really taken the plunge into DEATH, into an “empty and alien Necessity
or DEAD actuality (220).”
The lesson our Casanova has learned is that UNIVERSALITY and NECESSITY are essential to
INDIVIDUALITY, a truth taken up by our next shape of consciousness.
[As a side note, because of Hegel’s reference here to Goethe’s Faust, “Pleasure and Necessity”
can also be interpreted through the lens of Faust’s seduction of Gretchen. In brief: Faust, Reason
as a bare Individual, wants to see himself as an Individual in Gretchen, the independent Other or
Pleasure Object. But necessity forces him to see himself as a Universal instead and in a social
context, in which his Individuality is negated. Thus, the pursuit of Pleasure via “seduction” fails
because it leads to unhappiness. The Natural World (where one cares only for himself)
inexorably leads to the Social World (where one must care about others and society). The
Natural Act or impulse produces social responsibility – for sex leads to pregnancy and a child,
which leads to marriage, family, social norms and relations, etc. Sexual Love as mere pleasure
leads to the disaster that happens in Goethe’s Faust where Individuality gets shipwrecked on the
rocks of universality and necessity.]

(b) THE LAW OF THE HEART AND THE FRENZY OF SELF-CONCEIT.

Here we are still involved with an immediate natural INDIVIDUAL, but one a little closer to the
goal of a “spiritual-ethical” Individual, which happens when INDIVIDUALITY is fully merged with
UNIVERSALITY. —This Individual in contrast to the former, has Universality and Necessity within
himself as a “LAW” in his heart. As Reason, his desire is to have this Law become an independent
Object in which he can see himself, thus becoming All Reality, subject AND object at once. The
problem, in short, is that everyone has the same desire: to have the Law of THEIR heart
objectified in the world. When the Individual finds that the Law of HIS heart is rejected by
everyone, he flies into a rage of self-conceit and believes that the “way of the world” is the
problem: all people are just self-seeking Individuals, opportunists, who care only about
themselves and not the Universal Good.

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—Important, is that what we are about to see here is the Individual purging himself of his
PARTICULARITY – a major theme of the rest of the book. We see a shift from the Object as
Universal AND Particular, to the Object as just UNIVERSAL; a shift FROM the Individual’s insisting
that he see reflected in the independent Object his immediate PARTICULAR self (as well as the
Universal of his Law) TO seeing in the Object just his UNIVERSAL or RATIONAL Self – which is
identical in everyone.
OK. The Individual’s Law of his heart is not yet realized, not yet an existing Law or Public
Ordinance everyone must follow. Examples of the “Law of the heart” may be: “People should
not park in handicapped zones,” “People should clean up after their dogs,” “The wealthy should
pay their fair share of taxes,” etc. This Individual also regards the present order of laws and
ordinances as dead, oppressive, and hostile to the inner law of his and ALL hearts. Further, and
in contrast to the former shape, this Individual seeks not only his own pleasure and happiness
but that of everyone – his “heart throbs for the welfare of humanity.”
So the Individual as Reason, then realizes the Law (the universal) of his heart, now become a
universal public ordinance: his pleasure is now a reality. —But is it really? There are two
problems. FIRST, he no longer recognizes himself, the Law of HIS heart, IN the universal
ordinance it has become; it is now as alien and hostile to him as the original order of laws.
Indeed, he wanted to see UNIVERSALITY (or Law) in the form only of his immediate PARTICULAR
Individuality (or “Being-for-self”), not in the form of a “free and objective UNIVERSALITY.” What
he doesn’t yet realize IS that his Act is an Act of LIBERATION. As Hegel says, it is an Act which
frees himself from himself “by putting himself in the UNIVERSAL element of existent reality
(223).” He thereby purges himself of his PARTICULARITY and elevates himself into the true
UNIVERSALITY of Reason. Indeed, the real world now becomes HIS OWN ESSENTIAL BEING –
which is a unification of Individuality and Universality, which he yet cannot see.
The SECOND problem is that the other people in society now turn against him and his Law,
because it is the law of HIS heart and not theirs – they, also being Reason, want to see
themselves reflected/embodied in the objective universal laws that govern them; and this is
perhaps why when they reject HIS law they turn to the existing laws, embracing them as their
OWN laws which they now regard as reflecting themselves!
—It is at this point that this Individual becomes “deranged” and perverted and we are forced to
transition to a “virtue” seeking consciousness. First, he remains stuck between a “universal” and
“individual” view of things. He learns that “in realizing the law of his own heart” all laws and
ordinances are “really animated by the consciousness of ALL” and are the laws of ALL hearts
(224). He learns that “INDIVIDUALITY becomes an Object to itself in the form of UNIVERSALITY”
– but he still doesn’t see this. He doesn’t see himself in the Law he HIMSELF has made objective.
So he is in a “contradictory” or deranged state, which he links to the perversions of “fanatical
priests and gluttonous despots (226).” In effect, his Law both IS and IS NOT himself: “It is MY law
and it is NOT my law.” “His essence [his objectified law] is non-essential [does not reflect
himself] and his reality is an unreality (225, 226).”
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What this form of modern individualism finally concludes is that the universal order is
“perverted” and it is Individuality and self-interest that is the source of this perversion. The
result is a struggle of ALL against ALL, a “universal state of war in which each wrests what he can
for himself, executes justice on the Individuality of others and establishes his own, which is
equally nullified through the action of others (227).” Hegel calls this situation “the way of the
world” which the next shape of consciousness will be determined to transform into the true and
good “universal” by getting rid of “individuality” itself.

(c) VIRTUE AND THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

In short, Active Reason in the shape of “Virtue” believes that virtue – the good, the universal –
does not yet exist in the “way of the world,” only vice does. Virtue exists only “in itself” or
implicitly but not actually. And this is because only INDIVIDUALITY and SELF-INTEREST rule in the
world. The truth will emerge at the end that the Good, the Universal, does indeed EXIST and it is
precisely through INDIVIDUALITY and its ACTIONS that this Universal gets actualized!
So, this “Knight of Virtue” setting out on his mission, has a very lofty and noble aim: to make the
whole world virtuous. His end and his purpose, not yet realized, is the universal and the good,
the “universal good,” not the “individual self-centered good.” As a form of Reason this modern
Individual wants to see its End realized in the world, the Object standing over against it, so it can
experience itself as “all reality.” The problem is that the world – the “way of the world” –
consists of Individuals who only pursue their self-interest or the individual good and not the
common universal good. So “Individuality” is the problem and must be sacrificed and eradicated
both in the Knight of Virtue himself and in the way of the world. “Individuality is to be brought
under the discipline of the Universal … [and Hegel even underscores that] TRUE discipline
requires nothing less than the sacrifice of the entire personality as proof that individual
peculiarities are no longer insisted on (228).”
So, a battle then ensues between them, the Knight bent on transforming the essence of the
enemy. But, as Hegel says, this battle is really a “SHAM-FIGHT” (231), and this for three reasons.
– FIRST, they both have the same weapons to fight with – namely, “gifts, capacities, and powers”
– which are “universal” in that everyone has them and hence also “good.” Further, it is the
Action of Individuality which gives them life and reality, and therefore the defeat of the enemy
and his weapons would be the same as destroying the universal and the good!
– SECOND, the Knight can only enter into battle and engage the enemy through its OWN
ACTIONS and using its “Individuality” – which is supposed to be eradicated and not used.
– THIRD, the fight is only a “sham-fight” which it cannot engage in because it also believes not
only that the universal good ALREADY exists implicitly in the way of the world, but that the good
will rise to the surface completely ON ITS OWN without Virtue’s help!
Thus, there is no need to fight the enemy! Virtue is essentially impotent and cannot do anything
at all! It is in fact just pompous talk, fine phrases, and a rhetoric which doesn’t accomplish

44
anything. It just gives the speaker a sense of his own importance. The Result is that Virtue and
the Way of the World both VANISH!
A Virtue that believes in a “good” that only exists “in itself” and not really, disappears – because
it has learned that the “good” ALREADY exists in the world, and that Individuality itself and
individual ACTIONS are the only means whereby the Universal and the Good can become
actualized.
And though the Way of the World wins the fight and “triumphs over virtue,” it too disappears
insofar as it insists that all Individuals, everyone, acts out of “self-interest.” For it is “better than
it thinks” (235), as Hegel says, simply because in pursuing its “individual” good and self-interest
it is also advancing and realizing the “universal common” good: “to help yourself is also to help
others.” Hence, not only are the universal good and the individual good one and the same, but
INDIVIDUALITY and UNIVERSALITY are now ONE, and this will take us into ethical life and SPIRIT!
We now move to a form of Reason which no longer has to actualize itself by changing the world
in front of it by putting an unrealized END into it. It is its OWN End: Individuality, Action, and
Reality are ONE. In Hegel’s words:
“[Reason], being now absolutely certain of its reality, no longer seeks only to realize itself as an
END in OPPOSITION to the reality which immediately confronts it [by “overcoming” the same] –
[Reason] rather has the CATEGORY as such as the Object of its consciousness (236),” namely, the
unity of ITSELF and BEING! That is, AS the certainty of itself as all reality, Self-consciousness is
both itself and its Object or Other, “WHATSOEVER THIS MAY BE!”

(C) PRACTICAL REASON: “INDIVIDUALITY WHICH TAKES ITSELF TO BE REAL IN AND FOR ITSELF”
https://youtu.be/QAVUOr7amIM
The Truth is now the “spontaneous interfusion of the Universal … and Individuality (236).” Here
we will advance from a single and specific INDIVIDUAL as all reality to an ethical community of
INDIVIDUALS as all reality. The final result is that: ACTION and ACTIVITY alone is reality, that is,
the Action of absolutely independent Individuals who reciprocally see themselves in each other!
As Hegel anticipates:
“ACTION is in its own self its TRUTH and REALITY, and INDIVIDUALITY in its setting-forth or
expression is, in relation to Action, the END in and for itself (236).”
Hegel further states, given ACTION and REALITY are One, that: “consciousness has cast away all
OPPOSITION and every CONDITION affecting its Action … [which as] the movement of a circle …
is perfectly content to operate in and with its own self … [Indeed] ACTION ALTERS NOTHING
AND OPPOSES NOTHING! [it is just] a transition from a state of not being seen to one of being
seen (237).”

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—It is important to note that although it seems as if Reason’s goal of becoming “all reality” has
now been reached, Hegel reminds us this is not so, only in “Spirit” will this happen. “Yet [its
moments] STILL FALL APART within its consciousness as … a movement which has NOT YET
brought them together into their substantial unity (237).”

(a) THE SPIRITUAL ANIMAL KINGDOM AND DECEIT, OR THE “MATTER IN HAND” ITSELF.
OK. As usual we begin with the Individuality that is all reality in its IMMEDIACY as a single and
specific Individuality that is only an “abstract universal” reality because it is initially without
filling or content. The Individuality is merely a relation of “itself to itself” because relation to an
“Other” is no more. Recall that when “(B) Active Reason” began, “Things” as such no longer
existed, only Selves, Individuals, “I’s” EXIST – no sheer “Other” opposing the “I” existing, only an
“Other” of Other “I’s”. Recall also that in the previous shape the OPPOSITION of Virtue and the
Way of the World COLLAPSED into a community or plurality of “U.I.’s,” of Universal Individuals,
each as “all reality.”
The single INDIVIDUALITY here is a unity of BEING (its original specific nature) and ACTING (the
expressing of its nature). Its “original nature” are its special “capacities, talents, and character”
(which are “universal” because everyone has them). Its “original nature” is its sole END and
content, but to know what its capacities are and to know what it IS, the Individual must ACT and
produce a “WORK,” an expression of its Individuality, and this is its sole purpose here. The Unity
of BEING and ACTING also involves: the circumstances, the End to be realized, the Means of
realizing the End, and the Work done, the End as realized.
There are five “moments” that comprise this dialectic.
ONE: Thus “I”, as the Individuality, have just produced a WORK that totally and wholly expresses
myself and my original nature. I, as Reason, TOTALLY see myself in my Object, in a fuller sense
than I did in all previous Objects. In finding nothing but UNITY with myself and the certainty of
myself in the actual world, “I CAN EXPERIENCE ONLY JOY IN MYSELF (242)!”
TWO: But now problems begin! Does this CONCEPT of myself really correspond to Reality?
– First, because my Work is now out there in the world, Others can see it and react to it. They
see a Work which contains MY particular Individuality (an expression of MY original nature) but
not THEIRS. They want to see THEIR unity with reality in the Work, so they set about to replace
my Work with THEIR actions: THEIR interest in my work is different from MY interest in it.
– Another problem is that I no longer recognize the Work as MY Work. For the Work is now
“something perishable and obliterated by the counter-action of other forces and interests
(243),” which shows the reality of my Individuality as vanishing rather than as achieved. BEING
and ACTING are now opposed to each other as Acting now leads to NON-BEING. My Work now
succumbs to the jealousies of the so-called “Spiritual Animal Kingdom.” But nevertheless my JOY
is not diminished because I am certain that I ALWAYS succeed in expressing myself through my
Actions.

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THREE: However, I now find that I must change my view of what I’m doing. I am no longer
creating specific Works that reflect MY particularity and original nature (because my works are
perishable and sometimes unrealizable). I am now creating “universal Works” and fulfilling a
“universal” aim in that whatever I do it is MY aim or end (regardless of the content). Hence my
“True Work” is the Unity of BEING and ACTING. And it is this True Work, this Unity, that is “die
Sache selbst,” “the matter in hand,” the “big thing,” or “what really matters, counts, or is
important” (246). It alone is what endures despite the contingent results of an ACTION, the
circumstances, means, and reality. My True Work is thus to actualize this UNIVERSAL or “what
really matters.” This Universal, moreover, is just a FORM and has no special CONTENT – a Form,
that can be “predicated” of ANY activity. For this reason I can always find JOY in my activity,
even if it results in no Works! As Hegel remarks: “whichever way things turn out, consciousness
has accomplished and attained the Matter itself, what really matters (412)!”
FOUR: But an ambiguity lurks here and consciousness is not as “Honest” as it claims to be (415).
The “universal,” now my aim in all that I do, can be regarded either as (1) what really matters IN
ITSELF and FOR ITS OWN SAKE, no matter WHO does it, or as (2) what really matters AS what
requires just MY ACTIVITY to make it a reality, so “I” get the credit and glory for doing it, the
Work reflecting just MY Individuality and no one else’s!
What happens, in brief, is that when I “open up a subject-matter I soon learn that others hurry
along like flies to freshly poured-out milk, and want to busy themselves with it (251).” But when
they learn that I am NOT pleased with their interference and help, that the Work is NOT
something that must be done for its sake alone but is something I wish to regard as MY WORK,
they feel DECEIVED and cheated. —But the truth is that they themselves secretly want the same
thing, to see themselves IN the Work!
FIVE: The Result is that BOTH aspects, the universal and individual, are essential. What really
matters matters to the Individual himself and matters to everyone. Hegel calls this result “the
pure or universal matter in hand” as well as the CATEGORY: “the I that is Being, Being that is the
I (418).” The Category is also the entire CONTENT, namely, end, action, reality, being for self, and
being for another. It in fact is the “SPIRITUAL ESSENCE which is the essence of ALL BEINGS
(418)!” All moments, says Hegel, are now dissolved in the “Universal Matter in Hand.” Thus the
Matter in hand or “what really matters” is now no longer an ABSTRACT Universality but an
ethical Substance permeated by Individuality.
So, what now matters is the UNIVERSAL that requires “the Action of each and every one.”
Indeed, “this particular consciousness knows [the ethical Substance, what really matters] to be
its OWN individual reality and the reality of ALL (252).” This result now takes us into the law-
giving and law-testing Reason which will effect the transition to SPIRIT.

(b) REASON AS LAWGIVER. https://youtu.be/ORE_LG2Ewic

Self-consciousness now confronts as its OBJECT a community or ethical Substance “which has
Being only as the Action of EACH and ALL” – an ethical Substance Hegel identifies as the

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“ABSOLUTE Matter in hand” (“what absolutely really matters”). It is the TRUE and is what is
AUTHORITATIVE. It is the WORK and product of everyone and is an OBJECT, a TOTALITY, in which
everyone can see themselves – and see themselves as equally ALL REALITY, as REASON
actualized. This ethical Substance or UNIVERSAL is in fact the “ABSOLUTE” and it divides itself
into “the LAWS of the absolute essence (253),” an essence which is identical with Self-
consciousness. Self-consciousness as “sound Reason” knows immediately what is RIGHT and
GOOD (and ETHICAL). Hegel proceeds to examine how these “immediate ethical and
authoritative Laws” are constituted. Reason’s concern here is, How do you legitimate these
ethical Laws that all must follow and are the basis of everyone’s self-actualization? Also, since
these Laws are the essence and being of everyone, in obeying them everyone is obeying
themselves and hence absolutely free. Here we have the last trace of an immediate Individuality
STILL separated from the Universal. It thinks it has to use its own individual Reason to make and
validate the Laws which are its essence. It doesn’t realize that the Laws are created by
UNIVERSAL Reason, are there already, and as Antigone would say do not require legitimation!
Hegel considers two such Laws which Reason wants to validate qua their CONTENT: “Everyone
ought to speak the truth,” and, “Love thy neighbor as thyself (254).” In brief: the problem is that
these “laws” MUST immediately be qualified, in which case they lose their universality and moral
force: they no longer apply to everyone as they stand. “Everyone ought to speak the truth,” that
is, IF he knows what the truth is, which prompts the question, How can he be convinced that he
knows the truth? And to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” can only mean to love him intelligently,
to do “good” to him and not harm. But how does one know what is really “good” for another
person? What you do may turn out to be the opposite, etc.
Our concern here was to legitimate the CONTENT of the immediate ethical Laws. Since this
proved impossible, we will now see if Laws can be validated in terms of their FORM.

(c) REASON AS TESTING LAWS.

We still want to TEST Laws to see if they are legitimate Laws and authoritative for us. So we will
now use the criterion of “formal universality,” that is, to be a valid law a law must be self-
consistent or non-contradictory. The problem is, as Hegel notes, that “because the criterion is a
tautology and indifferent to the CONTENT, one content is just as acceptable to it as its opposite
(257).” Thus, for example: “Ought it to be an absolute Law that there should be PROPERTY?” The
answer is no, because the opposite is equally non-contradictory and thus valid. —That everyone
have and respect PROPERTY is of itself non-contradictory. But so is the opposite! – that there BE
no Property, that all things be owned in common! The two laws thus contradict each other and
neither can be an “absolute law.” The upshot is that you cannot TEST whether something is a
Law or not by using a formal criterion of “non-contradiction,” by using which ANYTHING is able
to pass the test and qualify as a Law. As Hegel notes:
“The criterion of Law which Reason possesses within itself fits every case equally well, and is
thus in fact NO CRITERION AT ALL!” [Hegel goes on to say] “It would be strange too, if tautology,

48
the maxim of contradiction, which is admitted to be only a formal criterion for the knowledge of
THEORETICAL truth, i.e. something which is quite indifferent to truth and falsehood, were
supposed to be more than this for the knowledge of PRACTICAL truth (259)!”
Thus, what we have been witnessing here is a Reason still entangled with immediacy and
PARTICULAR Individuality, one which has not yet liberated itself to PURE UNIVERSALITY!
Consequently, consciousness finally finds itself ready to “put its merely INDIVIDUAL aspect
behind it (261)!”
Moreover, “The Law [in truth] is equally an ETERNAL LAW which is grounded not in the will of a
PARTICULAR Individual, but is valid in and for itself; the law is the absolute PURE WILL OF ALL
which has the form of immediate being. [In fact] the law is the Universal ‘I’ of the CATEGORY,
the ‘I’ which immediately is a reality, and the World IS only this reality (260).”
Amazingly, what Hegel is in fact saying is that: The “I” or the Category is the World itself! –
something he repeats in the opening line of “Spirit”: “Reason is Spirit when … it is conscious of
the World as itself (263)!”

We’ll obtain a deeper understanding of what all this means when we take up next time BB.
SPIRIT and “ethical life” and finally see the realization of “Reciprocal Recognition” and “Reich
Gottes!”
THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 6
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “C: (BB) SPIRIT (A) & (B)”
https://youtu.be/9AQ1hUUXigA

Welcome! Last time we discussed “C (AA) REASON,” “(B) Active Reason” and “(C) Practical
Reason.” Today we will take up “C (BB) SPIRIT,” “(A) The True Spirit” and “(B) Self-Alienated
Spirit,” and make our transition to “(C) Self-Certain Spirit: Morality.”
First a Review and Overview: At the close of REASON as Practical Reason we made the
transition to BB. SPIRIT when the “Absolute Matter in Hand,” “What absolutely really matters
and is important,” became a community, Nation, or ethical Substance – the Work and product of
everyone and an Object in which everyone can see themselves as All Reality and Reason
actualized. At the start of “Spirit” Hegel says that, “Reason is [or becomes] Spirit when its
certainty of being All Reality has been raised to Truth, and Reason is conscious of itself as its own
world and of the world as itself (263) … [hence] the world is no longer ALIEN to the Self [and] the
Self is no longer separated from the world (264).” Hegel further states that, “Spirit, as actual
Substance, is a Nation, and as ethical consciousness is the citizens of that Nation (267).”
Spirit, as we saw, is the unity of Universality and Individuality, abbreviated as “U.I.” – a unity that
provides the key to this entire section of “Spirit” and to the Phenomenology. As Hegel often says
– what receives detailed treatment in his LOGIC (§163-4) – we move from an ABSTRACT
Universal to the true or CONCRETE Universal; to a Universal which also contains the Individual,
again to a “U.I.,” a.k.a. “absolute Knowledge” or the CONCEPT. Of course, this “concrete
Universal” is only implicit at the start of “Spirit” (which begins in its immediacy) and becomes
actual only at Spirit’s end in the unification of Acting and Judging Conscience and the “I = I” of
Reciprocal Recognition, which is “Reich Gottes” and the End of History.
In passing, there is something curious I must mention. As we have said, the Phenomenology has
not One but Two goals: to provide an “introduction” to systematic or Absolute Science, an exit
out of Plato’s Cave, AND, to bring “Reich Gottes,” the distant Kingdom of God, into History itself.
What is curious is that to my knowledge, no Hegel scholar or commentator ever mentions this! –
something for which there is no shortage of evidence. For example: (1) The “Kingdom of God”
(“Reich Gottes”) was THE rallying cry of Hegel, Schelling, and Holderlin during their college days
at Tubingen — cf., Holderlin’s July 1794 letter to Hegel and Hegel’s January 1795 letter to
Schelling: “May the kingdom of God come, and our hands not be idle! [And] Reason and
Freedom remain our watchword and the Invisible Church our point of union!” (2) Hegel in his
Jena writings says, in “Faith and Knowledge,” that absolute Science must be preceded by a
“Speculative Good Friday,” an allusion to the Phenomenology, and he also states that “the
present State is in truth the de facto existing Kingdom of God on earth!” Not to mention (3) his
numerous references in the Phenomenology, e.g., his allusion in the Introduction to “the

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stations of the Cross (49)” – the “phenomenological” stations that lead up to Calvary or Golgotha
(cf., the last line of the book [493]), the crucifixion of God – signifying the death of all
transcendence (of the God who is not here) and issuing in and ushering in the unity of God and
humanity, Heaven and Earth, that is, “Reich Gottes” or “Kingdom Come”! Hegel concludes that
without History and the crucifixion, God would be “lifeless and alone,” and, quoting Schiller:
“Only the chalice of this realm of Spirits [in human History] foams forth to God his own
infinitude.” —Again it is very curious, very strange that all this goes unmentioned! – Also
amazing – what is really stupefying – is that all the major Hegel scholars believe it to be Hegel’s
opinion that biological death is final, “when you’re dead you’re dead” – which cannot be further
from the truth! There are over 25 places where Hegel clearly states that “we are Immortal,” the
Phenomenology obviously being one of them since its final conclusion is that “the SELF is all
reality” – and not the generic Self but “THIS,” the individual, SELF (486)! For more evidence from
Hegel’s writings see my “Hegel On Immortality” article on Academia.edu.
OK, Hegel next summarizes the “three” parts of Spirit’s self-actualization in terms of the U-P-I
Concept, in terms of a “statement, departure, and return on a higher level” thematic. We move
from UNITY (Universality) to SEPARATION or DIFFERENCE (Particularity) to UNITY restored
(Individuality) – or: FROM an undifferentiated Unity of Universality and Individuality TO a
separation of Universality (or Substance or World) and Individuality TO a differentiated Unity of
Universality and Individuality – which precisely, as Hegel said earlier, is “SPIRIT” as this “absolute
Substance which is the Unity of the different independent self-consciousnesses which, in their
opposition, enjoy perfect freedom and independence: ‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’ (110;
also cf. 212).”
Again, the key to this movement is the becoming of the “concrete Universal,” the Universal in
absolute UNITY with the Individual [if I may, cf., “I (the Individual) and the Father, God (the
Universal, the ALL) are ONE (echad)” … and (of course) so are all of us (cf., the “eucharist,” e.g.,
John 17).]
Thus, we have Greek ethical life – the Universal, lacking the Individual, then Self-Alienated Spirit
– the Individual, lacking the Universal, and lastly, Spirit certain of itself – the fusion of the
Universal and the Individual. —We move from ONE World, to TWO Worlds, back to ONE World
(a process in which there are TWO “collapses”: that of the ethical world and that of the world of
culture). —The ONE World is that of “The True Spirit” of Greek ethical life, which collapses into
the atomistic realm of the Roman legal person, which then divides into the TWO Worlds of “Self-
Alienated Spirit,” into this world and the beyond, “the realm of culture” and “the realm of belief
or faith,” which finally collapses into ONE World again as a result of “Insight” and its diffusion,
the “Enlightenment” – as Hegel says, Insight “completes the stage of culture [by grasping]
nothing but SELF and everything as SELF (296).” The process ends with Morality, which grasps
“essence as the ACTUAL SELF, … and Conscience, which is Spirit that is certain of itself (265).” As
Hegel sums up:

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“The ethical world, the world which is rent asunder into this world and a beyond, and the moral
view of the world, are thus the Spirits whose process and return into the simple SELF-
consciousness of Spirit are now to be developed; and the goal and outcome of the process [will
be] the actual self-consciousness of absolute Spirit [or God] (265).”
The “moments” of the entire process are the following: Greek ethical life (where the Nation is
the essential, not the Individual), the clash and contradiction of Human and Divine Law, the
collapse of ethical life, the Roman legal person or “abstract” Individual, the Roman Emperor, the
Self-alienated Spirit (where the Individual is essential, not the Nation, society and laws), Culture
and its values, State Power and Wealth, the noble and the base, the Monarch and the nobility,
the disrupted consciousness (“Rameau’s Nephew”), the vanity and collapse of Culture, Faith and
Insight, the Enlightenment, the demise of Faith and its Beyond (a prerequisite of One World and
“Reich Gottes”), Deism and Materialism, Utility and the Universal Will as All Reality, the French
Revolution, AND Spirit certain of itself in Morality, Conscience, Evil and Forgiveness, Recognition
and absolute Spirit.
Before we begin our survey of Spirit’s self-actualization into All Reality, one point. As Hegel says,
we are now for the first time dealing with “Spirit” and concrete historical reality, with “self-
supporting absolute Real Being (264).” All prior shapes of consciousness, within sections (A), (B),
and (C) AA: Reason, were just abstractions and isolated moments of actual concrete Spirit.
Important is that this fact supports the thesis that Hegel intended the Phenomenology to show
human History ends with “Reich Gottes,” which precisely happens in the historical PRESENT!
Again, keep in mind that Spirit’s actual historical process advances from U-P-I – ending in “U.I.” –
It starts with the immediate Greek Spirit and the UNIVERSAL (without the Individual), then
advances to Self-Alienation, the split into TWO worlds, and the INDIVIDUAL (without the
Universal), and finally advances to Self-certain Spirit and the Unity of the UNIVERSAL and the
INDIVIDUAL – the “END OF HISTORY.”
First, our two questions and their brief answers: https://youtu.be/ctCQbWKl3SI
ONE: How did the harmony of Greek ethical life – of the immediate Spirit – collapse?
—In brief: Greek ethical life contained a “contradiction” – which had to surface and destroyed it.
The “contradiction” was between HUMAN LAW (the State, MAN, “Creon”) and DIVINE LAW (the
Family, WOMAN, “Antigone”): TWO Absolute Laws (the universal and individual) contradict and
destroy each other. For Creon, Antigone’s brother was an enemy of the state and must be denied
burial rites. For Antigone, the divine law commands she MUST bury her brother.
The Greeks had a Universal-tribal consciousness; they lacked Individuality. There was no opposition
between the individual and the state (as there is today). The individual citizen was ONE with the
state. Antigone represents the Individuality, Subjectivity and Conscience that were breaking in
upon ancient Greek ethical life: she was the first Feminist in history. Also, The Nation (the Tribe)
was essential – not the Individual. And everyone had their Fixed Roles which were never
questioned.

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—From the collapse of Greek ethical life we move to the Roman World of atoms or legal “persons”;
a private individual sphere, property rights, legal protection from others, etc.; but a farce since the
Emperor owned everything. This is the beginning of universal ALIENATION from society and the
world.
TWO: After the collapse of Spirit’s immediate form (Greek ethical life and the Roman legal
“person”) individual consciousness becomes “alienated” from its world – we see the medieval split
into Two worlds, and advance from the medieval to the modern period.
Discuss the 4 stages of this self-alienation leading up to the French Revolution and the Terror. In
brief:
(1) CULTURE: the first attempt to overcome “alienation.” Here, The Individual is essential, the
State, society and laws are unessential. The natural Individual must now “create and educate
herself, and define her role and profession.” Culture’s values of State Power and Wealth prove to
be unstable; each are both “good” and “bad,” “noble” and “base.” State Power is first good (has a
universal interest), then bad (is impersonal and doesn’t represent “me”); Wealth is first bad (qua
private-individual self-interest), then good (it helps one earn a living, have a profession, provide for
one’s family).
(2) The rejection of society’s values as contradictory, hypocritical, and false by the “disrupted
‘hippie’ consciousness” living in “a soul-less world” (Rameau’s Nephew, Diderot). This has TWO
solutions: (a) to go OUTSIDE itself to another ‘heavenly’ world (Faith), or (b) to go INSIDE itself,
where the Self or Reason alone is reality (Pure Insight);
(3) The clash between Religion (Faith) and Enlightenment (Pure Insight); both are one-sided, and
Enlightenment struggles with superstition, Faith ultimately being defeated (there is no Beyond, only
this world). Absolute Being becomes (a) God, and (b) Matter (Materialism), which reduce to the
same One Thought. This leads to UTILITY: Things are only “useful,” because my WILL is universal,
supreme and all reality.
(4) Absolute Freedom. This universal Will of Utility leads to the “Absolute (limited) Freedom” of the
French Revolution where all social classes and particularity are destroyed (cf. the Terror and
guillotine). We then move from France to Germany where true Absolute Freedom is realized in the
Morality of Conscience (Kant and Fichte) and in the recognition of evil and forgiveness – resulting in
absolute Spirit, God, and Kingdom Come.

OK. (A) THE TRUE SPIRIT. THE ETHICAL ORDER.

The Ethical Order is Spirit in its immediate form, a form which contains a “contradiction” relating
to its two ethical powers – the Human Law and the Divine Law – which issues in its collapse and
transition to a higher form. First the general context.

(a) The Ethical World. Human and Divine Law: Man and Woman. There are three points.
ONE: As said, the Spirit of the Greek ethical world is “Universal” and tribal, the moment of
“Individuality” is dormant, undeveloped. Thus the Individual is completely ONE with the
community and world, not yet “separated” from it – as immediate, “alienation” is not yet
present. Also, there is only ONE world or realm, not TWO, as will occur in the next Medieval

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period: the Greeks had no “transcendent” heavenly world above their present world.
TWO: The ethical order was divided into and governed by TWO absolute ethical powers assigned
to the Two Sexes. The Human Law, a law of universality which governs the State, the sphere of
MAN; and the Divine Law, a law of individuality which governs the Family and its members, the
domain of WOMAN. This meant that one’s role and duties in life were given and determined by
one’s Sex and the ethical power to which one belonged, there was no freedom of choice in this
matter; one’s duties, what one had to do, was unquestioned. The woman’s supreme duty and
deed, prescribed by the unconscious Divine Law of the underworld, concerned DEATH, the death
of a family member. Her duty was to bury or perform burial rites for its dead member (270). The
idea was that the death and decay of the body should be an action “consciously and ethically”
done, so that Nature and the irrational would not have the last word. The burial prevents the
dishonoring of the dead family member by lower life forms (271).
THREE: Of the three family relationships – husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister
– the relationship of Brother and Sister is the most sacred and ethical as it is a relation “devoid
of desire” and of equality, where brother and sister are in each other’s eyes equals. Hence, “the
loss of the brother is therefore irreparable to the sister and her duty towards him is the highest
(275).”
(b) Ethical Action. Human and Divine Knowledge. Guilt and Destiny. The contradiction endemic
to the ethical world resulting in its collapse, finally surfaces with the ethical ACTION of burying
the dead, which Hegel finds perfectly depicted in Sophocles’ “Antigone.” In brief: Antigone (the
daughter of Oedipus) performs the absolute duty of the Divine Law and buries her dead brother
Polyneices, that is, in violation of the edict, of the Human Law, made by “Creon,” the ruler of
Thebes, forbidding the burial of an “enemy of the State.” In short, both laws and actions, hence
the two ethical powers themselves, violate each other. Antigone and Creon are both RIGHT –
and both WRONG. Hence equally GUILTY. The “destiny” or necessity of the ethical order – a
natural “immediate” order – was therefore its self-destruction. As Hegel says: “Only in the
downfall of both sides is absolute RIGHT accomplished – and the ethical Substance’s …
omnipotent and righteous DESTINY steps on the scene (285).”
(c) Legal Status. “The Universal [ethical] being has thus split up into a mere multiplicity of
INDIVIDUALS … [and] this lifeless Spirit [or “Soulless community”] is an equality in which ALL
count as the same – as PERSONS (290).” The ethical world was without INDIVIDUALITY – and
with its demise we now advance to the Roman world of “Persons” and “Legal Right,” the first of
three stages in which “Individuality” becomes actualized (the others are those of Culture and
Pure Insight). In the ethical world the individual citizen was ONE with the community, but with
its demise we see the beginning of the individual’s ALIENATION from society and the world.
Society is split up into a multiplicity of “atoms,” of legal “persons,” with legal personal and
property rights and living in their private individual spheres. The reality however is that the legal
rights and dignity of individuals is a farce because the Roman Emperor, “the lord and master of
the world … who considers himself an actual living God (293),” is the de facto owner of
everything, persons AND their property. Nevertheless, and despite the universal misery inflicted
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upon the Roman world, the SELF, the Person, the Individual, has also (in the person of the
Emperor) been acknowledged as the universal reality. As Hegel summarizes: “The actuality of
the SELF that did not exist in the ethical world has been won by its return into the ‘Person’; what
in the former was harmoniously ONE now emerges in a developed form, but as alienated from
itself (294).”

(B) SELF-ALIENATED SPIRIT. CULTURE. https://youtu.be/j0MfTzYrzq8

Let’s first summarize How Spirit’s “self-alienation” will be overcome. Recall that Spirit or Reason
is ALL REALITY, subject and object at once. Therefore, to achieve this is to have overcome
“alienation” and finally to be “at home” in the world. There are TWO basic types of alienation:
(1) The SELF as alienated from the actual present world, and (2) the dual alienation resulting
from the Medieval world’s split into THIS actual world and the BEYOND. Spirit, the Self, tries to
overcome the first type of alienation by “Culture,” by cultivating itself for a station and role
within the world’s institutions and values of politics/courtly life AND commerce/making money.
This method fails when the “disrupted ‘hippie’ consciousness” sees through the hypocrisy of
these values and life-styles, the world of culture then collapsing. This leads to the “second” type
of alienation. With the actual world of culture in ruins, no longer a viable game or life-pursuit,
Spirit turns to its “pure consciousness” as a way out, in TWO forms: it turns OUTSIDE itself as a
FAITH in a “beyond,” and turns INSIDE itself as a PURE INSIGHT and Enlightenment which
regards the SELF or REASON as everything. But Reason cannot realize itself as ALL REALITY and
overcome “alienation” so long as Reality is split into TWO (a “here” and a “beyond”); so it directs
all its efforts to eliminating Faith (which by the way, is NOT “religion” per se), and which it
succeeds in doing. Enlightenment and Insight then becomes UTILITY, the Self and the WILL
becoming all in all – the end of alienation is implicitly achieved. – That is, we have a UNIVERSAL
Will, but INDIVIDUALITY (Being for self) is lacking. This leads to the French Revolution and a one-
sided “Absolute Freedom.” All alienation is finally overcome when Spirit becomes “certain of
itself” in Morality and Conscience when full INDIVIDUALITY in unity with UNIVERSALITY is
realized and the “reciprocal recognition” of ACTING (“U.I.”) and JUDGING (“U.I.”) consciences is
achieved!

I. The World of Self-Alienated Spirit. Spirit is now alienated from its world, its Substance.
“The world has the character of being something external, the NEGATIVE of self-consciousness
(294).” Yet the Self knows the world is IMPLICITLY itself since the world is the result of the Self’s
OWN “externalization,” the WORK of each and all. The Self or the Individual as an “absolutely
discrete Unit,” will now attempt to overcome its alienation from the actual world confronting it.
(a) Culture and its Realm of Actuality. In short: Medieval feudal society’s realm of actuality
divides itself into STATE POWER and WEALTH, the world of “culture” (Bildung); the “cultivated
individual” must choose which sphere to work and serve in. It turns out that since neither sphere
is a viable concern, the world of culture collapses and we are forced to transition to Faith and
Pure Insight.
Here, one’s “culture” alone matters – what you make of yourself: you only have standing in

55
society if you are cultivated and educated. It is the “individual” that chooses and defines her role
and profession in society – in contrast to Greek and to Roman society, where one has standing,
in the latter, merely by being a “person” with rights.
The dialectic here has four moments:
ONE: The cultivated individual must choose which objective sphere she is to serve in, State
Power (politics) or Wealth (money making), and to this end she uses the value judgments of
“GOOD” and “BAD” to help her decide. However, she soon learns that BOTH are equally Good
and Bad, hence negate themselves.
— The cultivated individual’s first judgment is that STATE POWER is “Good,” the sphere it should
choose to work in because it represents the general, the Universal interest and is there to help
everyone. Whereas WEALTH or making money, since it concerns only the interests and ends of
the Individual, is “Bad” and not to be chosen. Also important is that in choosing the “good” to be
State Power, the Individual puts itself in IDENTITY with this “Object,” thus becoming “All
Reality”; while the reverse is true regarding Wealth as “Bad” – as the Individual then remains
separated and ALIENATED from the Object.
TWO: But things then reverse! On second thought it realizes that it is rather WEALTH that is
“Good” because it helps the Individual meet his daily needs and helps him to benefit others,
whereas State Power is “Bad” since it is indifferent and in fact alien and oppressive to
Individuality as such.
THREE: The cultivated individual next uses the value judgments of “Noble” and “Ignoble or Base”
to help in its decision. The “noble” person is one who sees State Power and Wealth as BOTH
“Good,” whereas the “base” person is one who sees State Power and Wealth as BOTH “Bad.”
This solution and dichotomy also cannot be upheld. As Hegel says, the noble person’s “heroism
of service” becomes the “haughty vassal” always on the point of revolt, who cannot really be in
service to his lord and the State – and is thus ignoble or base. –The result so far is that State
Power and Wealth are equally Good and Bad, and there is also no difference between the noble
and the base person (the base is noble, the noble base).
FOUR: Finally, in an effort to save the noble/base distinction we advance next to the court of the
Sun King Louis XIV, to the Individual MONARCH who has absolute power (“L’etat c’est moi”). As
the State is now embodied in an “Individual” instead of a “plurality” of feudal lords, the Monarch
is now someone with whom the Noble (the noble person) can identify, see himself in, and serve
wholeheartedly. But this changes when the nobles realize it is they themselves – by their
constant language of “flattery” and use of the Monarch’s “name” – who are the real power
behind the Monarch, who they begin to despise when he becomes a “despot” and a dispenser of
wealth and who, as Hegel says, “in this arrogance … fancies it has by the gift of a meal, acquired
the Self of another’s ‘I’ (315).” Thus here again, “the distinction within its Spirit of being noble,
as opposed to ignoble, falls away and both are the same (314).”

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The result is that the cultivated individual’s value judgments on Power and Wealth – Good and
Bad, Noble and Base – are all contradictory and have no Truth, Power and Wealth no longer
being viable games or concerns. The actual objective world of culture has now disintegrated.
And this finds expression in the “disrupted consciousness” which though “torn in two” by the
world is nevertheless ONE with itself, “absolutely self-identical in its absolute disruption (316).”
Hegel feels “Rameau’s Nephew” by Denis Diderot perfectly captures this historical denouement
and mind-set confirming that “the real world is a soulless existence (326),” that all values are
vanity and hypocrisy. Here’s a brief excerpt:
The Nephew (of the musician Rameau): “It’s all vanity! Ha! What you should do is drink
good wine, blow yourself out with luscious food, have a tumble with lovely women, lie on
soft beds. Apart from that … the rest is vanity!”
Diderot: “What! Fighting for one’s country?
Nephew: “Vanity! There’s no such thing left. From pole to pole all I can see is tyrants and
slaves!
Diderot: “Helping one’s friends?
Nephew: “Vanity! Have we got any friends? And if we had, we should make them
ungrateful! Have a look round and you’ll see that THAT is what you always get for service
rendered! Gratitude is a burden, and all burdens are meant to be shaken off!
Diderot: “Having a position in society and fulfilling its duties?
Nephew: “Vanity! What does it matter whether you have a position or not so long as
you’re rich, since you only take a position to get rich! Fulfilling your duties? where does
that get you! Into jealousy, upsets, persecution. Is that the way to get on?! Butter people
up, good God, butter them up … watch the great, study their tastes, fall in with their
whims, pander to their vices, approve of their crimes. That’s the secret!
Diderot: “Seeing to the upbringing of one’s children?
Nephew: “Vanity! That’s the teacher’s job! [and so on (Penguin 65)]”
(b) Faith and Pure Insight. After the collapse of the actual world of culture there are only two
ways left to go to find reconciliation: OUTSIDE the world, to another world, a supersensuous
heavenly “beyond,” the way of FAITH or pure consciousness; or INSIDE oneSELF, the SELF or
REASON being everything, All Reality, the way of PURE INSIGHT or pure SELF-consciousness (the
“Self” here is not the Particular but the UNIVERSAL SELF). Again Faith here, Hegel notes, is not
“religion”; faith is a “flight from the actual world,” true religion is not. Faith also involves
“alienation” since the believer lives in the actual world, that is, “its pure consciousness is
alienated from its actual consciousness (322)” – which regards “its own actuality as something
worthless and to be overcome (325).”
—Here I will just quote three absolutely important passages of Hegel which give a direct insight
into Absolute Knowledge and which, to my knowledge, are also never quoted in the literature.
“[Here we have] the certainty that at once knows itself to be the Truth … pure thought as the
ABSOLUTE CONCEPT in the might of its negativity, which eliminates everything objective that
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supposedly stands over against consciousness, and makes it into a being which has its origin in
consciousness (323).”
[And] “[Pure Insight] knows essence … as the absolute SELF [or ‘I’ of Fichte] … and thus seeks to
abolish every kind of independence other than that of self-consciousness … and give it the form
of the CONCEPT. Pure Insight is not only the certainty of self-conscious Reason that it is ALL
TRUTH: it KNOWS that it is (326)!”
[Lastly, very important] “The absolute CONCEPT is the Category [in which] KNOWING AND THE
OBJECT KNOWN ARE THE SAME (333)!”
When Pure Insight becomes widespread it becomes “the ENLIGHTENMENT” — and thus Hegel
concludes: “this pure insight is the Spirit that calls to every consciousness: Be for yourselves what
you are in yourselves — REASON … (or Reasonable) (328)!”

II. The Enlightenment (the realization of pure insight). https://youtu.be/topjEjqh8Hc

Since Faith seeks its essence OUTSIDE itself in another world and Pure Insight seeks its essence
WITHIN itself, the two are “opposed,” hence Enlightenment is an all-out war against Faith.
(a) The Struggle of the Enlightenment with Superstition. Enlightenment thus regards Faith “to
be a tissue of superstitions, prejudices, and errors … [and the mass of people] are the victims of
the deception of a priesthood … which is in cahoots with despotism (330).” Enlightenment DOES
believe however that pure insight and Reason can STILL liberate the people from superstition
and false insight – it can silently penetrate the masses like “a perfume in the unresisting
atmosphere (331).” Enlightenment attacks Faith on four points:
ONE: Enlightenment first claims that the God Faith reveres is just a creation of its own
consciousness. Faith however doesn’t dispute this since it is “directly related to its Object … and
aware that it is ONE with it and in it (334).” Further, God is the Spirit of the community and is so
“only by being produced by consciousness (335),” but for Faith of course this is not the sole
ground of Spirit or God’s existence.
TWO: Because Faith’s God is manifest to it in “picture-thoughts” insight claims that the God
Faith worships is a piece of stone, a block of wood, or a piece of dough (the host). But Faith says
it in no way regards its Object as any type of temporal or sensuous thing.
THREE: Enlightenment also attacks Faith in that the ground of its belief is in the past, “basing its
certainty on some particular historical evidence … which even lacks the certainty of
contemporary newspaper accounts (338).” Faith counters that, on the contrary, it finds its
certainty within itself and not in ancient documents, for “it is the Spirit itself which bears witness
to itself (338).”
FOUR: Enlightenment also finds foolish the believer’s fasting and denying himself natural
enjoyment and pleasure as a means of rising above natural existence. But insight here is clearly
in the wrong, says Hegel, since it implies that no attempt to rise above natural pleasures is
meaningful – and “thereby saves itself the trouble of actually accomplishing the liberation from
natural aims and impulses (348).”

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—The result of Enlightenment’s attack on Faith, however, is the complete loss of the content of
Faith, for indeed “it has been expelled from its kingdom … [its] kingdom has been ransacked …
the waking consciousness has monopolized every distinction of it and has vindicated earth’s
ownership of every portion of it and given them back to earth (349).” For Enlightenment has
brought the utensils of this world into the housekeeping of Faith. The God of Faith has lost its
content and is now completely without predicates – an empty void. In Hegel’s words, “[Faith has
become] a sheer yearning, its truth an empty beyond – it has become in fact the SAME as
Enlightenment, but with this difference: Insight is satisfied Enlightenment, but Faith is
unsatisfied Enlightenment (349).”
(b) The Truth of Enlightenment. With Faith thus defeated there is no longer a “Beyond,” only
THIS world – this means that the second form of “alienation” is implicitly overcome. What
remains is to definitively vindicate the SELF as All Reality (what is equivalent to making the
“transcendent” wholly immanent) and uniting INDIVIDUALITY with the UNIVERSAL SELF and
WILL now before us. The truth of Enlightenment has three moments: Deism, Materialism, and
Utility.
First, victorious Enlightenment now breaks up into TWO parties, which turn out to be one and
the same. DEISM is the party which still holds on to an Absolute Being or “God,” an “Etre
Supreme,” which is absolutely void, empty, and without content – hence just a THOUGHT. The
opposite party is that of MATERIALISM, which holds that “matter” is absolute and all reality, is
an absolute Being. As Hegel says, “pure matter is what is left over when we abstract from seeing,
feeling, tasting, etc., … Matter is rather a pure abstraction … [indeed it is also just] THOUGHT –
pure Thought itself as the Absolute (351).”
It is in UTILITY, Hegel says “that pure insight achieves its realization and has itself for its OBJECT
(353).” As Hegel echoes at the end of the book:
“The Thing is ‘I’ and nothing more… Things are simply USEFUL and to be considered only
from the standpoint of Utility. The cultivated self-consciousness which has traversed the
world of self-alienated Spirit, has, through its self-alienation, produced the Thing as its
own Self … The Thing is only a BEING FOR AN-OTHER (481).”
–That “Other” being the SELF itself. Hence “Being for another” IS “Being for SELF” – hence
nothing but the SELF, as “Universal” SELF, exists! Hegel concludes: “The Universal SELF [is] the
Self of itself as well as of the Object … [and] Spirit comes before us now as ABSOLUTE FREEDOM
… it understands that its certainty of itself is the essence of ALL the spiritual spheres, of the real
as well as of the supersensible world … the world is for it simply ITS OWN WILL, and this is a
General WILL (356).”

III. Absolute Freedom and Terror. Thus “this undivided Substance of Absolute Freedom
ascends the throne of the world without any power being able to resist it (357)!” —To recap: We
began “B. Self-alienated Spirit” by pointing out the Two forms of Alienation that had to be
overcome in order for Spirit, for Reason, to realize itself as ALL REALITY. The first form, the

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alienation of the Self from the objective world, was overcome with the collapse of the world of
culture as epitomized in the “disrupted ‘hippie’ consciousness.” The second form of alienation,
due to the split of reality into two worlds, the present and the beyond, was overcome with
Enlightenment’s victory over Faith and consummation in Utility and the Universal Will. This led
to Absolute Freedom and the French Revolution. We now again have just ONE WORLD, as we
did at the start with the ethical world of the Greeks – and we are just one step away from “Reich
Gottes” and true Absolute Freedom, the unity of Universality and Individuality, which awaits us
in the Moral sphere.
In brief: The world or reality is now known to be each person’s WILL, that is, as the ONE,
UNIVERSAL WILL – hence, all social groups, classes, and professions are now abolished, being
reflections of the PARTICULAR and not the UNIVERSAL Will. The problem is that there MUST be a
government, a central authority which brings order and laws into the nation, but no such
government is possible since a central authority can only be a particular FACTION whose laws
will be judged by the people to be “particular,” representing the interests of the Faction, not the
Universal interest. Thus, everyone who occupies the seat of government is under “suspicion.”
Hence nothing can get done. “The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore DEATH
[death by “guillotine”] … the coldest and meanest of deaths, with no more significance than
cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water (360).”
—Since this situation is intolerable, “particularity” eventually is restored and the “organization
of spiritual spheres to which the plurality of individual consciousnesses are assigned thus takes
shape once more (361).” We now pass to another land of self-conscious Spirit, that of the Moral
Spirit, “which knows this Being enclosed within self-consciousness to be essential being in its
perfection and completeness (363)!”
Next time we will take up “C. SPIRIT CERTAIN OF ITSELF” and watch how absolute Freedom, the
End of History, and “Reich Gottes” become a Reality.

Here is a preview: First, as to what “Reich Gottes” is, it is just what Hegel calls “Spirit,” which
he’s been giving us glimpses of all along, the first time in “B. Self-Consciousness” where he
describes Reich Gottes/Spirit as, ‘a UNITY of absolute substance in which all the independent
self-consciousnesses enjoy perfect [absolute] freedom’ (110, 212). Reich Gottes is just a
community – a “world community” – in which each independent SELF-conscious Individual is
recognized by everyone and is IMMORTAL and indestructible (since each Individual IS the
CONCEPT). This is true because – as H.S. Harris also says – the CONCEPT is the SELF,1 they are
one and the same, and the CONCEPT is “Alles,” ALL Reality and the ONLY Reality.
— Now, as to WHEN Reich Gottes is achieved in the Phenomenology – briefly: although it seems
to happen only in the last chapter, “Absolute Knowing,” because Hegel says it happens when
Religion’s CONTENT and picture language receives Morality’s FORM (that of the CONCEPT), in
fact, on our view, it happens at the end of Morality in “evil and forgiveness” with the “reciprocal

1
Also cf., “The CONCEPT is the SELF that is for itself (484, §795).”

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recognition” that Hegel calls “God” – which is something, however, that WE the
phenomenologists know, but not consciousness itself – IT will know it only in “Absolute
Knowing.” This is clear given Hegel’s remarks at the beginning of “Religion” where he says that,
“WE NOW KNOW that Spirit in its own world [in the here and now, the result of “BB. Spirit”] and
… Spirit in religion are the SAME (412)!” – and this IS “Reich Gottes,” the unity of Heaven and
Earth, Religion and the present world! Also important is that Religion itself never achieves this
reconciliation but always faces a “world that STILL has to await its transfiguration (Verklarung)
(478)!” Only when religious consciousness advances to “Absolute Knowing” does it achieve this
unity and reconciliation!

THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 7
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “C: (BB) SPIRIT (C)”
https://youtu.be/jYS92yNmz8o

Welcome! Last time we discussed “C (BB) SPIRIT,” “(A) The True Spirit” and “(B) Self-Alienated
Spirit.” Today we will take up “(C) Spirit that is Certain of Itself: Morality” and make our
transition to “C (CC) RELIGION.”
First a Review and Overview: The actualization of “REASON and SPIRIT as ALL REALITY” has been
our focus and goal since we reached section “C” of the Phenomenology, and its (AA) Reason and
(BB) Spirit, in which the goal is finally reached – a goal best expressed as the unity of Universality
and Individuality. To recall: Spirit’s first section, “(A) The True Spirit: Greek ethical life” was Spirit
as the UNIVERSAL, while its second section, “(B) Self-Alienated Spirit,” was Spirit as the
INDIVIDUAL. In this final section of Spirit, “(C) Self-Certain Spirit: Morality,” we will see the
unification of the UNIVERSAL and the INDIVIDUAL, that is, “Reich Gottes,” Absolute Freedom,
and the End of History.
In brief: With the Enlightenment and Pure Insight, everything was SELF and SELF was ALL
REALITY. With Utility, the Self qua Universal WILL became All Reality and led to the French
Revolution, which had to implode since it had the “Universal” but not the “Individual” – to be
remedied in “Spirit certain of itself and Morality and Conscience.” In short, Morality contains a
contradiction resulting in its collapse (the “contradiction” is [1] you are supposed to realize it
[the harmony, the “highest good”] and yet [2] you are not supposed to realize it, because if you
did morality would cease! – Morality also lacked the “Individual” aspect). And Conscience as
Morality’s truth will realize the unity of Universal and Individual – that is, after it resolves an
internal problem. At the end, Morality and Conscience are both transcended, and we will find
ourselves “beyond good and evil,” “guilt,” “judging and being judged.”

(C) SELF-CERTAIN SPIRIT: MORALITY.

Here we will begin with MORALITY – which involves a separation or duality of Pure Duty AND
Nature/the world and the attempt to overcome the duality, which proves impossible, as self-
contradictory – and advance to CONSCIENCE, which, having realized this dualism to be
untenable, begins with a Unity or “non-separation” of Duty and the world, which has its own
problems, and results likewise in ITS transcendence – but one which issues in Reich Gottes!
First, our main question and its brief answers:
DISCUSS Kant’s concept of Morality, its shortcomings, and its resolution by Acting and Judging
Conscience with the forgiveness of evil, mutual recognition (I = I), and the appearance of absolute
Spirit or God: Reich Gottes.
—Briefly: Kant begins with the idea of “pure knowing and WILLING” as All Reality (364f), or the

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“Universal WILL,” which he took over from the Enlightenment’s Utility and the French Revolution.
He further divides the whole into the TWO opposed spheres of Morality (Duty) and Nature (Reality-
World). In one word, for Kant there is a DUALISM which ought not to be a DUALISM: Duty and
Reality are contradictory. The goal of Morality, the “Highest Good,” is to bring about the harmony
of Morality (Duty) and Nature (Reality-World) (a.k.a. “Kingdom Come,” “The Jedi Order”), by
converting the latter into the former by means of Moral actions. This goal and task Kant calls a
“Postulate,” something that does not now exist but must be possible; for if it were NOT possible,
there would be no reason to attempt it and engage in moral actions. However, if the harmony or
unity of the TWO actually existed, all moral activity would cease: meaning that the goal of Morality
is to do away with Morality itself! So (1) Kant operates with a bogus concept of morality, (2) his
ethics lacks the aspect of RECOGNITION by Others, which means that (3) Kant has the “Universal”
(pure duty) but not the “Individual” and their unity, the “U.I.”
—Kant’s shortcomings are resolved by Conscience, for which Duty and Reality are not contradictory
but are One. Briefly: We have Acting “Individual” Conscience and Judging “Universal” Conscience.
Everything Acting “Individual” Conscience does is moral, good, and right simply because of its
“conviction” that it is moral and universal (and benefits everyone). But because all Acting
Conscience’s actions are tainted by “particularity” and self-interest, they can be regarded or
“judged” to be selfish and evil, as Judging “Universal” Conscience claims. The Judge then demands
that the Actor confess and admit that he is evil – for he pretends to be moral but is really evil. And
the Actor DOES admit this and does ask for forgiveness, but ONLY when he sees the “hypocrisy” of
the Judge and sees they are both the same, i.e., the Judge wants his words alone to count as moral,
while he does not “act” at all (being a “beautiful soul”). Thus, ultimately, they both realize their one-
sidedness, “confess,” and thus forgive each other. This is a “reciprocal RECOGNITION” which is
absolute Spirit or “GOD appearing in the midst of those who know themselves as pure knowledge”
[NAMASTE!]. Each receives from the other what it lacks, Acting “Individual” Conscience the
Universal, and Judging “Universal” Conscience the Individual. Hence both become a “Universal
Individual” or “U.I.” “The I expanded into a Duality” and a “Unity of Opposites” where both see
themselves in each other – an “I am absolutely OK, and you are absolutely OK” situation. The final
result is: Universal GOD or SELF-REALIZATION – KINGDOM COME – and THE JEDI ORDER.
As Hegel says, it means the End of All GUILT, SIN, JUDGING and BEING JUDGED … WHERE ONLY
LOVE REMAINS (Enc. §159, add). Thus, Universal RECOGNITION and Education are destined to
replace RELIGION.
(a) The Moral View of the World. In short, Morality or the “moral view of the world” involves a
“contradiction” which results in its collapse and transition to Conscience. The contradiction rests
on two factors: (1) Pure “DUTY” is the absolute Essence and its actualization in the world is all
that matters, yet (2) Duty and Nature/the world, moral law and natural law, are completely
independent and indifferent to each other; and this makes the realization of Duty in the world,
or the conforming of Nature to Duty, impossible, hence the need for “postulates” as an effort to
remedy this situation. – The way to bridge this divide and actualize Duty is by “moral ACTIONS”
on the part of INDIVIDUAL Self-consciousness.
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There are Three Postulates (taken from KANT’S Moral Philosophy):
ONE: The harmony of Morality and Nature (or Happiness; a.k.a., the final purpose of the world,
the highest good, or “Reich Gottes”). Again, this harmony MUST be postulated because the
moral individual finds that Nature is indifferent and resists its moral efforts, denying the
“happiness” which should accompany them; in fact it complains that the non-moral person is
often happier than itself!
TWO: The harmony of Morality and Sensibility (the Nature within itself, its natural impulses and
desires having a purpose opposed to that of pure Duty). However, we can’t get rid of
sensuousness since it is needed to perform moral actions. Thus as Hegel says, “sensuousness
should be in conformity with morality … [hence this harmony or] unity is likewise postulated; it is
not actually there; for what IS there is … the opposition of sensuousness and [Duty or] pure
consciousness (368).”
THREE: The third postulate is that of a Holy Moral Lawgiver (or “God”), which must be
postulated because, e.g., there are many moral situations involving many particular duties and
their actions. BUT only “pure Duty,” as a pure Universal, is alone sacrosanct and authoritative for
the moral individual, not any “particular” duty – so we must postulate another “transcendent”
consciousness which can confer sacredness on the “particular” duties which alone bear upon
Reality.
(b) Dissemblance or Duplicity. https://youtu.be/3SwZfXHeVBM
Moral consciousness will now show how it is really not “serious” about its “postulates,” which
are involved in contradiction and prove to be untenable. It will show this by “dissembling” or
“shifting” from one position to its opposite. A main point is that if the postulated harmony ever
came about, e.g. that of morality and nature, it would spell the end of morality: the goal of
morality being that there BE no morality!
Here are a few examples of this “shifting.”
ONE: Hegel takes up as the first position, to be subsequently abandoned or displaced, the
“postulate” of the harmony of morality and nature. It is assumed that “there is an actual moral
consciousness,” as this is the basic premise of morality. It means simply that the moral life is a
valid life-style, or that there is a consciousness that is pursuing morality as a real possibility,
actively realizing it in the world. Again, the reason why the harmony of morality and nature has
to be postulated in the first place is that in the present is found only the opposition or non-
conformity of natural to moral law. If it were not postulated, if it were not a possibility, it would
be ridiculous to command the moral subject to bring it about. Thus, the first position is that the
harmony of morality and nature is NOT present but is to be postulated, for if the harmony were
present moral action would be made superfluous.
However, Hegel goes on to say, no sooner is this position “placed” than it is immediately
“displaced” by its diametric opposite. For moral consciousness is primarily an ACTIVE one and its
activity is what constitutes its actuality. But its activity is nothing other than “the production of
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an actuality determined by its moral purpose” (375), i.e., the production of the harmony of
morality and nature itself. Hence, “action thus as a fact fulfills directly what was asserted could
not take place at all, fulfills what was to be merely a postulate and to lie in the ‘beyond’ (375).”
TWO: Moral consciousness’ present position is that it is “serious” about action and its ability to
actualize morality. But Hegel is quick to point out that it is not even serious about this position
and immediately proceeds to displace it by positing something else as its essence. For the final
end of morality, Kant’s “highest good,” is nothing short of the entire world, the reign of virtue on
earth, which is the essence and what is to count. But in the face of the immensity of this final
purpose the individual’s contingent and isolated deed, just performed, becomes insignificant
and reduced to “nothingness.” And as Hegel says, “because the universal best ought to be
carried out nothing good has been done (376).” Thus, whereas it was previously held that moral
action is of significance, it is now held that action qua INDIVIDUAL action, before the task of
realizing the highest good, is of no value and utterly devoid of significance.
On the other hand, the concept of morality itself is very explicit with respect to the necessity of
ACTION in that it obliges us to realize duty in the whole of nature so that moral law may become
one with natural law — so that universal duty (i.e., the thought of duty) may become concrete or
ACTUAL duty. Thus, moral consciousness is not completely serious about the dichotomy of
natural and moral law.
Furthermore, in the concept of the highest good, virtue combined with proportionate happiness,
is implied the absolute harmony of morality and reality as a whole (nature plus the sensuous
will) – the coincidence of moral law and natural law. Hegel then poses the fateful question:
What would ever happen if this goal were reached, if this harmony were present? The answer is
direct and devastating: Moral action would cease and morality be no longer. This would be so
because moral action, as defined by Kant, can only take place so long as there exists an
opposition, a non-moral element, that is to be cancelled or “moralized” as the result of an
action. Hence the absolute irony here is that the supreme goal of moral action is that there be
no moral action. In Hegel’s words: “because moral action is the absolute purpose, the absolute
purpose is—that moral action does not take place at all (377).”
THREE: The harmony of morality and sensibility (the nature within), what is equivalent to
“virtue,” must also be postulated, for if it existed moral action would cease. Moral consciousness
thus takes up a hostile or negative attitude towards sensibility which is to be canceled or made
to conform to the moral law. This attitude is taken because the Duty’s pure purpose is opposed
to the impure purposes of impulses (Triebe) and inclinations (Neigungen). However, this
negative attitude towards sensibility is directly “displaced,” for sensibility is essential to moral
action. Without it, as the mediating element between pure purpose (Duty) and reality, moral
consciousness cannot ACT. Thus the latter cannot wish to do away with them for action requires
particular purposes. Hence, sensibility MUST retain its particular purposes, opposed to pure
duty.

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And, because morality has proved to be unactualizable, Hegel goes on to say that the “moral”
subject can only demand or expect happiness as a matter of “grace” and not because he would
be deserving of it. Also the criticism and judgment: “the man without morality comes off well”
given out by the Kantian moral subject due to the “injustice” of his situation, is at bottom an
expression of envy, which “covers itself up in the cloak of morality (379).”
Thus, as a result of these “displacements” we see that what really is of ultimate importance for
the moral subject is the middle state of incomplete or im-morality. In the following Hegel makes
it clear that the subject is not really serious about morality’s “completion,” i.e., the conformity of
sensibility to morality and the moral law:
“In truth morality would really be giving itself up in that completion … That this moral
completion [the conformity of sensibility to morality] is not taken seriously is directly
expressed by consciousness itself in the fact that it ‘shifts’ this completion away into
INFINITY – and asserts that the completion is never completed (378).”
FINALLY, since the result has been arrived at that there is no moral consciousness that is actual
(the actual being merely the incomplete or immoral consciousness), if morality is to have any
meaning at all then it must be “postulated” that morality exists in “completed” form in a
consciousness other than that of the moral subject, namely, in that of a “Holy Moral Lawgiver.”
But now the contradiction implicit in morality becomes evident to moral consciousness itself. For
a being or consciousness far removed from actuality and the opposition and struggle between
reason and sensibility can in no wise be considered “moral.” The “contradiction” lies in the
concept of a morality whose essence is to be an opposition that must not remain one, yet at
the same time must remain one. This is why the attempts to locate morality WITHIN actuality
and BEYOND actuality both have to be unsuccessful. IN actuality we always have a sensibility
whose purposes are opposed to morality; BEYOND actuality we are beyond sensibility as well,
hence without that element vital to the opposition essential to morality.
The earth-shattering realization that Hegel is bringing to us in all of this, is that there is no such
thing as morality (i.e. morality in its Kantian form). Morality, or the moral attitude, did not exist
from the start, it was merely an idea, a universal, that demanded its actualization, an
actualization which proved to be impossible. What this also means is that the Moral view of the
world indeed has the UNIVERSAL (as Pure Duty) but not the INDIVIDUAL – and this is because it
lacks the element of ACTION (for moral “action” proved impossible), and Action is only possible
as the Action of an “INDIVIDUAL.” As a result, the aspect of “RECOGNITION” by others is also
missing. These shortcomings will be made good in CONSCIENCE which we now move to!

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(c) Conscience. The “Beautiful Soul,” Evil and its Forgiveness. https://youtu.be/jOHUTog-bng
The Moral view of the world and its concepts proved untenable and contradictory and thus
collapsed; concepts, namely, of a universal duty separated from the individual Self and from an
indifferent world and nature. The result is CONSCIENCE (represented by Fichte and the
Romantics), and whose SELF qua Knowing and Willing is the opposite of Morality. That is, for
Conscience there is no separation between Duty and the Self and between morality and the
world/nature, both are ONE. This means that everything Conscience does, all its Actions, are
good, right, and moral – provided, that is, that they are done with CONVICTION. As Hegel says,
“In the Will of the SELF that is certain of itself, in this knowledge that the SELF IS ESSENTIAL
BEING, lies the essence of what is RIGHT … All that is required is that [Conscience] should know
this, and should state its conviction that its knowing and willing are Right (397).” Conscience as a
unity of Universality (Duty) and the Self (Individuality) also involves a community, a plurality of
consciences, AND reciprocal recognition: “[Indeed] in calling itself Conscience … it calls itself a
UNIVERSAL knowing and willing which recognizes and acknowledges OTHERS and is the same as
them (for they are just this pure self-knowing and willing) and is also recognized and
acknowledged by them (397).”
Now, before we look at the dialectic’s three moments, two things.
—FIRST, a word about the origin of Acting and Judging Conscience in what Hegel calls the
“BEAUTIFUL SOUL” (whose historical reference is the Romantic “Novalis”). In brief: the turning
point for Conscience occurs when its majesty and freedom of Conviction, which allows it to put
any content it pleases into its Knowing and Willing, becomes threatened – which happens at
paragraph 648 when the OTHER consciences of the universal community begin to become
“uncertain about the [true motives of the] Spirit which does the action … and are forced to take
it to be Evil (394).” When this happens Conscience withdraws into itself and no longer acts or
engages with the world to avoid being judged as evil – indeed, “it now lives in dread of
besmirching the splendor of its inner being by action and existence (400).” It becomes a
“Beautiful Soul” – which, on the one hand, is divine and god-like, a “moral genius which knows
its inner voice to be a DIVINE voice [and] is in its own self DIVINE worship [as] its action is the
contemplation of its own DIVINITY (397).” But on the other hand, in its stark isolation it
eventually becomes an unhappy “lost soul” and “its light dies away within it and it vanishes like a
shapeless vapor that dissolves into thin air (400).” But then, as Hegel says, this Beautiful Soul
“positively externalizes itself and moves onward (483)” – that is, by partitioning itself into an
Acting and Judging Conscience. For example, this Beautiful Soul is in fact the “simple CONCEPT
that surrenders its ETERNAL ESSENCE [its divine isolation] and is there [in the real world] and
Acts (484).”
—SECOND, we must mention the importance of language or speech. Now, all that remains for
Conscience is that it have its conviction as regards its duty universalized or recognized and its
concrete (knowing and willing) Self validated – which can only occur in a community of selves or
moral beings. This brings us to language, for Hegel the universal medium of recognition and also
of Spirit which immediately exists.
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Language is the universal medium of recognition because in it the Self exists in a form in which it
is at the same time for itself and for others. It is only through and because of its conviction, in the
form of an express utterance, that an individual consciousness is able to announce and identify
itself as Conscience and universal. In the following Hegel makes this quite clear:
“Language or speech is self-consciousness existing for others; it is self-consciousness
which as such is there immediately present, and which in its individuality (als dieses) is
UNIVERSAL. [In] language the Self … becomes an object to itself, … and at the same time
fuses directly with others and is their self-consciousness. The self perceives itself at the
same time that it is perceived by others (395).”
Language is the Self existing in UNIVERSAL form. When I speak to you, I am consenting to open
myself to objective being, I am asking to have my being recognized by another or by other
selves, I am desiring to experience the enjoyment of seeing my Self in another Self, i.e., of being
doubled. —Language, then, is the medium in which the drama of the forgiveness of sins is acted
out, and it is vital to keep this in mind for otherwise it will not be understood why all interest
hangs on whether one consciousness will offer a confession or admission to another or not.
Spirit, for Hegel, only has meaning and reality in a community of self-conscious beings.
It should also be pointed out that “absolute moral justification” and Spirit, the result of the
dialectic, both imply a state of being or consciousness free from “evil” and “guilt,” a state
brought about by the fact that “the wounds of the spirit heal without leaving any scars (407).” It
must be borne in mind that “evil” for Hegel consists simply in isolating oneself from the spiritual
community, in holding to what is individual and particular as against the Universal. With the
resolution of the conflict between acting “evil” consciousness and judging “good” consciousness
comes the glorious freedom of knowing that one is always acting rightly, doing the good and
performing what is universal.
Thus, Conscience – in its freedom to “put any and every kind of Content into the universal
receptacle of pure duty and knowledge (392)” – becomes a “Beautiful Soul.” As we said, this
type of conscience keeps to itself, aloof from others, and “lives in dread of staining the radiance
of its inner being by action and existence (400).” It is the pure “I = I,” which is a one-sided “I = I”
in that it refuses to open itself to the objective being of recognition and language. In its most
extreme form the Beautiful Soul was self-annihilating and “dissolved into thin air (400).” In its
less extreme form it becomes judging consciousness or conscience, one of the two principal
characters of the dialogue. The other leading role is played by acting consciousness or
conscience. This is the type of conscience which desires to have its inner conviction regarding its
alleged “dutiful” (universal) acts recognized as such by others. Acting conscience, in that each of
its acts has upon it the “stain of determinacy (392),” will be stigmatized as “evil” by judging
conscience, the conscience that judges but does not act.
To summarize: Acting conscience, styled “evil” by judging conscience and demanded to admit to
its evil, will come to recognize not only its own self as evil, qua particular, but also that of judging

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conscience which due to the way it is constituted also reveals itself as particular. Acting
conscience upon seeing evil in its opposite will straightway confess its own evil in the
expectation of a similar confession on the part of its opposite. Judging conscience will balk,
holding to the “stiff-necked” attitude of the “hard-heart.” But soon, realizing the inherent
contradictions of its own position, the latter will also yield its confession. This reciprocal act of
confession, forgiveness and justification will result in the coming into being of a state of
universal equality of selves, the concrete realization of the “I = I” which Hegel will call absolute
Spirit and Reich Gottes. This dialectic has three moments:
THE FIRST MOMENT is occupied with exposing the “hypocrisy” alleged by judging conscience to
exist in acting conscience whose only desire is to have its inner conviction and concrete Self
recognized by others as good, dutiful and universal. The struggle is one between individual and
universal consciousness. Conscience in its actions has now become aware of the DISPARITY
between its conviction and its natural individuality which supplies the content for its actions.
Qua acting conscience it tells others that its particular actions DO correspond with its inner
conviction of universal duty. But from their perspective they only see in the former’s actions a
content which does not reflect them, which is not universal but particular. Hence they call acting
conscience “evil,” against the universal.
For acting conscience individuality, ACTION, and certainty of self are essential (Wesen) while the
universal is not. For judging conscience or universal consciousness the universal, i.e., duty, is
essential while individuality and ACTION is not. Since acting conscience declares its act to be
duty and conscientious its opposite calls it “hypocrisy.”
This hypocrisy must be “unmasked”: inner and outer must be made to correspond. Hypocrisy
however is not unmasked by judging conscience persisting in its judgement of acting conscience
to be evil and base. For it can only appeal to its OWN inner law for its judgment in the same way
that evil consciousness appeals to ITS law. For the reason that judging conscience’s law makes its
appearance IN OPPOSITION to the law of acting conscience, the former’s is a PARTICULAR law.
Hence it has no antecedent claim over the other and in fact legitimizes it to boot. What it calls its
“true duty,” which ought to be universally acknowledged, is something NOT acknowledged and
recognized. Thus it stands in the same need of recognition, universalization and validation in
which the other does. Indeed the upshot is that it shows ITSELF to be hypocrisy.
THIS SECOND MOMENT of the dialectic, marked by this sudden turnabout, will be concerned
with pointing up the “identity” of the two consciences. It will be explicitly shown that judging
conscience is constituted in the self-same way as acting conscience, that it too “puts its phrases
in place of duty.” This will be followed by a confession of guilt on the part of acting conscience,
which will signal the first moment of the reconciliation which is absolute Spirit.
Through its own “particular” judgment judging conscience puts itself on the same level as acting
conscience and the latter perceives this and knows that the former is also “hypocrisy.” Judging
conscience says it is dutiful, but to be dutiful implies the performance of acts. As Hegel says, “it

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is hypocrisy which wants to see the fact of judging taken for the actual deed (403).” Judging
conscience expects to be recognized as good and dutiful solely on the basis of its “fine
sentiments” or words, not because of its acts or deeds. Acting conscience sees that its opposite
is hypocrisy as well and perceives the IDENTITY of the two.
Also, Judging conscience cannot deny what acting conscience holds by, namely, that its specific
deed is its duty, for duty only manifests itself in particular concrete cases. The point is, ANY and
every act can be viewed as either dutiful or particular and selfish. For example:
“If the act carries glory with it, then the inner sphere is judged as love of fame
(Ruhmsucht) (404).”
“[And] Since in the act in general the individual who acts comes to see himself in
objective form … and thus attains enjoyment, the judgment on the act finds the inner
nature of it to be an impulse towards personal happiness (404).”
Thus, since every Action contains within it both particularity and universality it can be viewed
with equal warrant as moral and good or as private and base. Judging conscience therefore,
because of the fact that it holds to the particular aspect when it can just as well hold to the
universal aspect of its counterpart’s act, is ITSELF by its judgment BASE and MEAN. Furthermore,
it is “hypocrisy” because in giving its judgment it does not admit to its own wickedness as being a
judger without acts or deeds.

https://youtu.be/NXRU5RtPbLo

We now have the THIRD AND FINAL MOMENT of the dialectic, which focuses on the actual
reciprocal confession and forgiveness of sins proper. The result of the preceding movement is
that acting conscience has come to recognize judging conscience as evil, as constituted in the
same manner as itself. Seeing their identity the former with the words “I am wicked” openly
confesses himself to the latter and anticipates the others’ reciprocation which will bring about
Reciprocal Recognition. This confession on the part of acting conscience is the first moment of
reconciliation. What remains is for judging conscience to give its own similar confession. Here is
a summary in dialogue form:
Judge: “Admit you are evil and a hypocrite! For you say you act from duty, yet all your
acts reflect not the universal but your individual particular being.
Actor: “O.K., since I see you are the same as myself, I admit I am evil and a hypocrite. But
due to the situation I find myself in, that is, that all acts have a universal and
particular side, I see there is nothing I can do about it. Duty implies acts which
imply particularity. This being so, please forgive me.

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 Judge: “O.K. I forgive you, I see your plight and your innocence. Your situation is
excusable. I also recognize my evil and onesidedness and need of your
recognition.”
The result is that BOTH Consciences have become the “Unity of Opposites” – “U.I.” In confessing
itself acting or “INDIVIDUAL” conscience declared its individuality or self to be cancelled, i.e., to
be a moment of the whole. Its knowledge is now completed with individual AND universal sides.
In judging or “UNIVERSAL” conscience confessing, it likewise rids itself of its onesidedness. By
acknowledging its counterparts’ self it identifies its essence with this real Acting “individual” self
and announces its universality qua abstract duty to be a moment, its knowledge now finding its
completion in the same manner (cf., 408f, 485). In short, we are now “beyond good and evil,”
“guilt,” and “judging and being judged.”
Both consciousnesses have thus had their knowledge universalized or have become Universal
Knowledges. Perhaps here we should be reminded that at this stage in the Phenomenology’s
dialectic we are at a point where realities other than knowledge or certainty of self do not exist,
have all been transcended (aufgehoben). We are strictly in a universe of Knowledge or Knowing.
As Hegel recalls in the last chapter: “This mode of [moral] experience knows its knowledge as
the absolute essential element, knows no other objective being than pure will or pure
knowledge. It is nothing but merely this will and this knowledge. Any other possesses merely
non-essential being, i.e., being that has no inherent nature per se (481).”
Hence, in this sphere the only object standing over against me and capable of limiting and
restricting the comprehensiveness and absoluteness of my knowledge and my self-certainty is
another self-certain knowledge like myself. With the knowledge which assures my complete
identity and equality with this other, my knowledge has become absolute and the sphere and
scope of my existence unlimited. This is true ABSOLUTE FREEDOM!
Thus, what emerges from the reconciliation of individual and universal spirit is nothing short of
absolute Spirit. And absolute Spirit is the “concrete [not abstract] actual I” which is “universal
knowledge of self in its absolute opposite,” in an absolute opposite which is itself universal
knowledge. It is the knowledge of an “I” which, having been “expanded into a duality,” remains
in its opposite one and identical with itself,” and what is more, “possesses the certainty of itself
in its complete relinquishment and its opposite (409).” And “absolute Spirit” finds the element
of its actualization in a community of “I’s”, in the experience of an “I that is We, and a We that is
I (110)” — and this is both “REICH GOTTES” and “RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION.” Thus, the
Reciprocal Recognition which was demanded in the earlier “Master-Slave relationship” is now
finally realized and consummated. For, “the reconciling YES … is a RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION
which is absolute SPIRIT or GOD (408-9).” As we have said, since each Self is equally the
CONCEPT … WE, You and I, are each other’s “own Being and Creation (Enc. §159).” WE are
equally absolutely independent and free, yet “I AM YOU AND YOU ARE ME.”

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To recap: We began “Spirit certain of itself” with Spirit knowing itself – its Knowledge and Will –
as ALL REALITY (364f), which needs only to be actualized. And this happens by a movement from
SEPARATION to UNIFICATION. The moral goal is to realize “Reich Gottes,” the kingdom of God in
the here and now, the “Highest Good,” which is THE purpose of (Kantian) MORALITY, which
attempts this by a SEPARATION of Duty and the Self and Morality and the World, which proved
incoherent and collapsed, advancing us to CONSCIENCE, which began with the understanding
that Duty and the Self, Morality and the World, were ONE. After Conscience split into Acting
(Individual) and Judging (Universal) Conscience and their opposition and conflict were resolved,
the actualization of Spirit as All Reality and Reich Gottes became complete. Also to be
mentioned is that Conscience (as well as Morality) has been transcended, and this because
“forgiveness” has replaced “conviction” – with the “forgiveness of sins or evil” Conscience’s
“conviction” as to what is good or evil is no longer binding. Three final points.
ONE: The reason why we now have “absolute Spirit” is because Spirit is no longer “relative,” for
each Self or “I”, in the world community of “I’s” is the SAME, is a “U.I. unity” of Universality and
Individuality. Thus, in relating to an Other “I”, to Other “I’s”, it is relating only to ITSELF! Hence, it
is ABSOLUTE!
TWO: As we said, Reich Gottes is a world community of immortal “I’s”, a single substance of
independent I’s who in their opposition enjoy perfect freedom. Reich Gottes has now been
realized! – FOR US, not for consciousness itself, which will happen in “Absolute Knowledge”
when religion’s Content receives morality’s Form (that of the Concept). And THIS is why we must
now transition to “Religion” – which also must happen in order to bring the last remaining
“Object” of consciousness, religion’s “God” into the CONCEPT, that it may be the “absolute”
CONCEPT. As Hegel says at the start of the last chapter: “The Spirit of the revealed religion has
not yet overcome its consciousness [of an Object, an Other] as such … its ACTUAL self-
consciousness is not yet the Object of its consciousness (479).”
THREE: This IDENTITY of the two “U.I.” Selves which is absolute Spirit, IS “ABSOLUTE
KNOWLEDGE,” which happens, as Hegel said in the Introduction, at “the point where Knowledge
no longer needs to go beyond itself (51).” – where we have a “Knowing OF Knowing” and the
“opposition of consciousness [to an Object or Not-I] is overcome.” Indeed, Absolute Knowledge
and Reich Gottes both signify “the End of Human History.” – History being nothing but the saga
and travails of “Consciousness OF an Object” and which necessarily comes to an end with
“Consciousness OF Consciousness,” the “Knowing OF Knowing,” that is, “SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.”
Next time we will take up “C (CC) RELIGION” and its three phases, A. Natural Religion, B. [Greek]
Religion in the Form of Art, and C. The Revealed [Judeo-Christian] Religion. We will discover that
Religion, for Hegel, does indeed know the TRUTH (one’s unity with God, Being, the Absolute),
but in a Form (“picture-thinking”) which keeps it “alienated” due to a split into a “here” and a
“beyond,” necessitating an advance to “Absolute Knowledge” and the CONCEPT. Then we shall
make our transition to “C (DD) ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.”

THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 8
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “C: (CC) RELIGION (A) (B) & (C)”
https://youtu.be/IefYzwZvgME

Welcome! Last time we discussed “C (BB) SPIRIT,” “(C) Spirit that is Certain of Itself: Morality.”
Today we will take up “C (CC) RELIGION” and its three parts, “(A) Natural Religion,” “(B) Religion
in the Form of Art,” and “(C) Revealed Religion” and make our transition to “C (DD) ABSOLUTE
KNOWLEDGE.”

C. (CC) RELIGION.
(1) First, the “SPIRIT, RELIGION, and ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE connection.” In brief: at the end of
SPIRIT we have “absolute Spirit” or “God” as the only reality; then we have the self-actualization
of Spirit or God in RELIGION, but in the form of “picture-thinking”; finally we have the perfect
self-knowledge of God or Spirit (“Spirit knowing itself as Spirit”) in the form of the Concept in
ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.
In more detail: As we saw last time, “absolute Spirit” was the final result of BB: SPIRIT and the
TRUTH of all that has preceded. What this means is that there IS NOW nothing but “absolute
Spirit” or “God” – or simply “SPIRIT” (remember, we are studying the “phenomenology of
SPIRIT!”), and as Hegel says, “Spirit is ALL Reality and ALL Truth (415, 418).” This also means that
we are now compelled to enter that sphere which deals exclusively with absolute Spirit or God
and its becoming or self-actualization, namely, “RELIGION.” – And “religion,” Hegel says, is “the
SELF-Consciousness of SPIRIT (410),” and note, not OUR Consciousness of Spirit but SPIRIT’S
Consciousness of ITSELF – and this is because all that IS Spirit! It can even be said that at this
point in the Phenomenology there is no longer “human” or “our” consciousness as opposed to
Spirit’s or God’s consciousness, but only Spirit’s or God’s consciousness. After passing through a
series of religions we will arrive at the self-actualization of Spirit or God in the “Revealed
Religion.” We will have “Spirit knowing itself AS Spirit” BUT in the “non-conceptual” form of
Vorstellung or “picture-thinking.” Finally, we advance to “Spirit knowing itself AS Spirit” in
“ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE” in the fully adequate “conceptual” form of the CONCEPT, which
brings the Phenomenology to a close. As Hegel says: “Although in [Revealed Religion] Spirit has
indeed attained its true Shape, yet the shape itself and its picture-thoughts are [defective]” –
and we must then “pass over into the CONCEPT (416).”

(2) Also as we said – the Key is there is only ONE SPIRIT and Religion’s perfection happens when
it realizes that “Spirit in its own world [and Spirit = the World]” and “Spirit in religion [Spirit’s
self-consciousness] are the same!” – “religion being only a part of life and hence in opposition to
Spirit in its own world.” SO we move here from One to Two: From One: where “Self-
consciousness and Consciousness proper, Religion and Spirit in its world (412)” are first

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separated from each other. To Two: “the perfection of Religion consisting in the Two becoming
identical with each other (412).”
— Also, not only is Spirit the Ground of Reason, self-consciousness and consciousness, but
Religion itself, as Hegel says, is the Ground of Spirit and all preceding stages! AS Hegel says:
“Religion is the perfection of Spirit into which its individual moments – consciousness, self-
consciousness, reason, and spirit – return … as into their GROUND …. (413).” This is the genesis
of Religion. These four stages belong to self-knowing Spirit, hence the series of religions will
reflect these four and their moments.
(3) Even though we have all along been drawing an equation between “Spirit,” on the one hand,
and “God,” “Reich Gottes,” the “Kingdom of God,” “Absolute Knowledge,” and the “Concept,”
on the other hand, it is important that we have a clear idea of what “Spirit” actually is AND
according to Hegel’s own statements. Thus “Spirit” is: a “unity in multiplicity,” “ONE substance
as a community of ‘I’s,’ individuals, independent self-consciousnesses that in their opposition
enjoy perfect freedom … [it is an] I that is We, a We that is I (110)”; it is “this and no other I …
and no less a universal I (486)”; it results from “reciprocal recognition as an I which has
expanded into a duality (409)”; and is that which “has the certainty of its unity with itself … in
the duplication of its self-consciousness and in the independence of both (211)”; finally, “Spirit …
knows that the world is itself (263),” hence “Spirit IS the World, is All Reality … nothing but Spirit
exists.” All this can be best expressed by Hegel’s words at the end of BB: Spirit where he says
that absolute Spirit is simply “the One God in and as his community,” that is: “God manifested in
the midst of those who know themselves in the form of pure [absolute] knowledge (409).” In
sum: Spirit is at the same time, a unique INDIVIDUAL (a “this”) yet an INDIVIDUAL who is one
and inseparable from ALL other Individuals – who is also a “WE.”
—OK. The main points are:
(1) Religion is the Self-knowledge, the Self-consciousness, of SPIRIT.
(2) There is only ONE SPIRIT and it gradually comes to know itself in the series of religions.
And (3) The Goal here (as in Reason and Spirit) is to UNITE Consciousness and Self-consciousness
– so that the SELF becomes ONE with God’s SHAPE. As Hegel says:
“Spirit lives in the difference of its Consciousness and Self-Consciousness … so the aim of
the movement [through the series] is to cancel this main difference and give the Form of
SELF-Consciousness to the SHAPE that is the Object of Consciousness (417).”
What is important is that the series follows the A, B, C method of the Table of Contents, a la Jon
Stewart. Thus, as Hegel says, in sum (416): in Natural Religion, the first reality, Spirit is in the
form of “Consciousness;” in the Religion of Art, the second reality, Spirit is in the form of “Self-
Consciousness;” and in Revealed Religion, the third reality is the unity of the first two (where
“the SELF is as much an immediacy as the immediacy is the SELF [416]”). Here, Spirit is in the
form of Reason and Spirit itself. First, the Object is a natural Object, Being/Immediacy (e.g.
Light); second, it is the SELF (e.g. the statue); and third, it is an ACTUAL concrete SELF (the “God-
Man”). —But again, as Hegel observes, “though here Spirit has indeed attained its true shape —
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[namely, Actual Self-Consciousness, as a human being (the “God-Man”)] — yet the shape itself
and the picture-thought (Vorstellung) are still the unvanquished aspect from which Spirit must
pass over into the CONCEPT [“Absolute Knowledge”], in order wholly to resolve therein the
FORM of OBJECTIVITY, in the CONCEPT which equally embraces within itself its own opposite
[416].”
So let’s now see how the ONE SPIRIT gradually comes to know itself and see itself in its Object or
Shape! Or, How the Object of its Consciousness becomes an Actual SELF!
—The goal of Religion is “Spirit (God, the Absolute) knowing itself as Spirit.” Hence we begin
with: “Spirit (God) knowing itself in the shape of “Light,” then, “Plant and Animal Deities,” then,
Works of Art, “the Sculpture of a God,” the “Hymn,” the “Cult,” the Gods depicted in the “Epic,”
“Tragedy,” and “Comedy” and finally, in the shape of Self-Consciousness as a human being (the
“God-Man”) or SPIRIT. Hence, Spirit or God is in truth SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, “which is conscious
of being ALL TRUTH and contains ALL REALITY within this TRUTH (415)” – which is how ALL
religions regard the Object they take to be God (the sacred, holy, divine).
First, our main questions and their brief answers: https://youtu.be/cjY84DKXvzA
ONE: Here in (CC) Religion we are following the development of the religious consciousness and
its Object (God or the in and for itself Absolute Being). Give a brief summary of the various types
of Natural Religion, and Religion in the form of Art, and their limitations.
—In brief: NATURAL RELIGION: (a) God as Light: The Zoroastrian religion of Persia has no Self or
Subject and no particularity. (b) Plant and Animal: In the Hinduism of India, we see war between
individual deities; and we have the ONE abstract Brahman and MANY deities, hence no harmony
but divine chaos. (c) The Artificer: in Egypt, instinctively produces works such as the Pyramid
(which has an Inner divine and an Outer reality); here we see the Nature/Spirit conflict in the
Sphinx and the transition to true Art. One Limitation is the separation of the believer from the
Divine.
RELIGION IN THE FORM OF ART: (a) The Abstract Work of Art. (1) The Sculpture of the god (in self-
consciousness human form, free of nature). But as “inspired” it doesn’t reflect the artist, who
fails to see himself in the work. (2) The Work of Art in Language: the divine in the Hymn and
Oracle has language, but in the Oracle the language of the Gods is “alien” and unintelligible. (3)
In the Cult (e.g. the Eleusinian Mysteries), the adepts become one with the divine (but in an
incomplete way). (b) The Living Work of Art. (1) The Bacchic Revelers express the Dionysian side
of the Divine but lack its self-conscious side, (2) The Athlete, is the Body and the living god but
lacks an Inner as well as language. (c) The Spiritual or Literary Work of Art. (1) The EPIC, such as
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, depicts universal themes and reflects the U-P-I Concept: the
Universal (the gods), the Particular (the Heroes), and the Individual (the Minstrel, Homer
himself). (2) In TRAGEDY, such as Antigone, though the gods are portrayed on stage in speech
there is still alienation from the Divine, a split between the Actor and what he portrays. (3) In
COMEDY, such as Aristophanes’ The Clouds, the split and alienation is overcome We have a self-
conscious subject with private convictions replacing the gods.
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TWO: What is the difference between NATURAL RELIGION and Greek RELIGION IN THE FORM OF
ART?
—In brief: The difference is that in the former we have no SELF in which I can see myself (e.g. in
God as Light, Plant & Animal, Anubis & Sphinx), while in the latter we have the Divine as SELF-
Conscious (e.g. as Sculpture, Hymn, Oracle, Cult, Athlete, and in Epic-Tragedy-and Comedy).
However, the Greeks were not “anthropomorphic” enough, their gods were of the imagination,
and not of flesh and blood!
THREE: What is the problem or defect of Christianity (the absolute religion)?
—In brief: “Picture-thinking” prevents the UNITY of us and God, Heaven and earth and produces
a SPLIT into a Here and a Beyond, the Past and the Future. “Picture-thinking” must be
transcended into the CONCEPT in “Absolute Knowledge.”
The following questions will be answered at the end:
—What does Hegel mean when he says that: “[The religious community’s knowledge is defective as the
Church] is still burdened with an unreconciled split into a Here and a Beyond”?
—What does Hegel mean by “the death of God”? – by his saying that the true meaning of the Cross is
that: “God Himself is dead” – and, further, when he speaks of: “the return of consciousness into the
depths of the Night of ‘I = I’, which no longer knows anything outside of it”?

(A) NATURAL RELIGION.

Spirit or God here is immediate or natural. The Divine appears in a “given” or natural form which
is known nevertheless to be “filled with Spirit” and to be All Truth and All Reality. Again, the One
Spirit in the series of religions is gradually coming to consciousness of itself, and in each religion
there are TWO sides and they are both “Spirit”: Spirit as “Subject” (consciousness, that which
worships, reveres) and Spirit as “Object” (the object of consciousness, that which is worshipped,
revered).
(a) God as Light [Persia]. Thus, there IS nothing but Spirit (God, the Absolute), and the ultimate Goal
is for “Spirit to know itself as Spirit.” The first immediate form or shape in which Spirit knows itself is
that of LIGHT, corresponding to the Zoroastrian religion of Persia and the “Zend-Avesta.” “Light” in
its immateriality, Hegel says, is Nature’s immediate analog of self-consciousness and has the shape
of “shapelessness.” The “Lichtwesen” is the religion of “sense-certainty” whose object is mere Being
or immediacy. This divine Light reveals itself in the forms of Nature and is regarded as the Lord that
rules over all peoples and things. But since there is no “SELF” yet we must advance to the next
higher religion, that of
(b) Plant and Animal [India]. Here, Spirit knows itself in the shape of PLANTS and ANIMALS, which
corresponds to the ancient Hindu religion of India, which has the One abstract Brahman along with
Many deities, and which exhibits a divine chaos and no harmony. This is the religion of “perception”
and discrete things where Spirit now sees itself in a variety of independent plant and animal forms

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having a primitive “self-hood.” Here Plants are considered calm and blameless whereas Animals are
hostile and vicious. Animals are associated with various national spirits which hate and fight each
other to the death, hence a divine “chaos.” This leads us into the next religion of the
“understanding” which has an inner and outer side, namely:
(c) The Artificer [Egypt]. Spirit will now know itself in the products or works of the Egyptian
“Werkmeister” or Artificer. Spirit no longer has “given” objects such as light, plants and animals in
which to see itself, but objects which it itself produces and with a “divine” meaning. What it does is
take natural materials and shapes them into architectural and sculptural forms. Here the artificer
works “instinctively” much like a bee building its cells but without knowing himself in his works. His
works are thus products of the “understanding” such as obelisks and pyramids which house just the
dead but not the living spirit and which have an Inner divine side and Outer geometrical side of
straight lines and plane figures. The understanding’s inner/outer division is also found in the Anubis
and the Sphinx (which are half dog/half man, and half lion/half man). It is the “riddle” of the Sphinx
(a “riddle” solved by Oedipus) which show Egypt’s Nature/Spirit conflict and which necessitates the
transition to Greek religion in the form of Art. Spirit’s products here were inarticulate mixtures of
the human and the natural and were without “language.” With the Greeks we advance from a
natural to a wholly spiritual religion in which the “human” by itself is the divine shape. The Egyptian
religion was also characterized by a separation of the believer from the Divine but was also the first
to have a belief in “immortality.” We now transition from the Artificer to the Artist!

(B) RELIGION IN THE FORM OF ART. https://youtu.be/u4gsIoEu-cI

With the Greeks and the religion of ethical life and a free people we have the sublation or
transcendence of Natural Religion. Spirit will no longer know itself in natural forms or mixtures of
natural and human forms but only in the human shape, that of the “Self” and “Self-Consciousness”
(but not yet of an “actual living” individual Self-Consciousness). Greek Religion, as Hegel says, is
linked to Mythology and the “revolution” of the gods which happened when the Olympians (the
Race of Zeus or “Spirit”) overthrew the Titans (the Race of the gods of “Nature,” e.g. Helios,
Oceanos, Chronos). Again, here we have the transition from the Artificer to the Artist, who now
begins to become aware of his SELF in his work of art. Previous Art was only instinctive, Greek Art is
a creation of “free spirit.”
(a) The Abstract Work of Art. Here Spirit will know itself in the shapes of sculpture, hymn, oracle,
and cult. These art-works are “abstract” for Hegel because they fail to adequately represent the
reality of “individuals,” human and divine. (1) Spirit first sees itself in an Object of stone or bronze,
in the “STATUE” of an idealized human form that is enclosed in a temple. The artist has produced an
object with the shape of the SELF, in human not animal form; Spirit sees itself AS Spirit, that is, as
SELF-CONSCIOUS. However here, in this first immediate work of art, which is an “inspired” work, the
self-conscious ACTIVITY of the artist is separated from the work itself. Further, the statue of the God
is without ACTUAL Self-Consciousness, hence is self-less and abstract – the artist knows he did not
create a being like himself. In other words, the divinity is still one of “nature” – thus, what is
required is “language” or “speech,” the distinctively human element. (2) The language of the divine

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first appears in the “ORACLE” (for example, the oracle of Delphi). However, the language the oracle
speaks is that of an unintelligible “alien” self-consciousness not a “human” one, hence Spirit is
unable to see itself in its object. (3) The next language of the divine is that of the HYMN, which is a
sacred song sung by the God’s worshippers, a song in their own “human” language and one infused
with divinity; hence here, Spirit, the worshippers, know they are ONE with the divine.
(4) A still higher language of the divine and example of Spirit knowing itself as Spirit is found in the
“CULT” (for example, that of the Orphic and Eleusinian). Here the God loses the immobile “out-
thereness” of the Statue and comes down from its pedestal in such a way that its worshippers
actively commune with and become ONE with him. Here, in contrast to the Statue, it is the “Soul”
that is the temple of the God. Also in the Cult, such as the Eleusinian Mysteries, natural things like
bread and wine are given a divine meaning: bread, wine, and fruit are the actual Gods themselves
(Ceres and Bacchus) and by their eating and drinking the adepts become ONE with the divine (albeit
not in a complete way). In Hegel’s words: “The Concept of the CULT is already contained and
present in the stream of sacred song [the HYMN] … [However,] the Soul is only something that
immediately is, a Soul that cleanses its exterior by washing it, and puts on white robes, while its
inward being traverses the imaginatively conceived path of works, punishments, and rewards, the
path of spiritual training in general, of ridding itself of its particularity, whereupon it reaches the
dwellings and community of the blest” … [but, as Hegel goes on to say, it is only the SOUL (psuche)
and] “not yet the SELF that has descended into the depths and knows itself as evil (432f)” – cf. for
example, the Psalms of David: “Lord create in me a pure heart” (which Hegel quotes in the
Philosophy of History, Sibree 322). The Greeks, as Hegel says, had not penetrated as deeply into the
INNER and the Absolute as did the Hebrews and Jesus of Nazareth. For “the mystery of bread and
wine had not yet become the mystery of flesh and blood (438).”
(b) The Living Work of Art. Spirit will next know itself in the shapes of Bacchic revelers and the
Olympic Athlete. In brief: In Nature’s food and drink in the mysteries, the Earth-Spirit undergoes a
metamorphosis into a “feminine” principle of nourishment and a “masculine” principle of self-
conscious force (437). The former is the “undisciplined tumultuous life” of Bacchic revelers, the fruit
of the vine as a moving impulse which “now roams about as crowd of frenzied females, the
untamed revelry of Nature in self-conscious form (438).” The latter is the work of a “living self,” a
living work of art, “the Festival which man celebrates in his own honor (438)” – a Festival in which
“Man puts himself in the place of the statue as the shape that has been raised and fashioned for
perfectly free movement. … [The Olympic Athlete] is an inspired and living work of art that matches
strength with its beauty … and is the highest bodily representation among his people of their
essence (438).” Of course what is missing is “words” or “language,” which compels us to advance to
a more perfect field for the living work of art, namely, the literary or
(c) The Spiritual Work of Art. Spirit will next know itself in works of literature, drama, and plays: the
classic works of Epic, Tragedy, and Comedy. In brief: (1) The EPIC, such as the Iliad and Odyssey of
Homer, is involved in a “universal enterprise” in which the entire nation is trying to gain an
understanding of its true essence by enlisting the aid of divine beings and human heroes, and which

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takes the Concept’s “U-P-I” form of: Universal (the Gods), Particular (Heroes), and Individual (the
Minstrel or Artist: Homer). One problem is that the Gods appear as finite and limited in their
opposition and clash with one another, not to mention the power of FATE, which rules over them,
undermining and calling into question their divinity. (2) In TRAGEDY, such as Sophocles’ Oedipus and
Antigone, although the gods are portrayed on stage in “speech” there is still the Self’s alienation
from the Divine, namely, a “split” between the Mask (e.g. of Zeus) and the Actor (a real person).
Finally (3) In COMEDY, in Aristophanes’ The Clouds for example, we have a situation where there is
no longer any “split” and where alienation, the separation of God and the actor, is overcome: a self-
conscious subject with private convictions has replaced the gods, for god is in each self-conscious
agent; the Greek Gods have become “clouds” which vanish into thin air. Thus, no one any longer
believes in “the gods.” In Hegel words,
“Trust in the eternal laws of the gods has vanished, and the Oracles are dumb. The statues
are now only stones from which the living soul has flown, just as the hymns are words from
which belief has gone … The works of the Muse now lack the power of the Spirit, for the
Spirit has gained the certainty of itself from the crushing of gods and men … it is the Spirit of
the tragic Fate which gathers all those individual gods into the one pantheon, into the
Spirit/God that is itself conscious of itself as Spirit/God [Jesus Christ]. … [All the preceding
forms, in the Greek and Roman worlds, the religion of Art, Stoicism, Skepticism, etc.]
constitute the ‘audience’ or periphery of shapes [Gestalten] which stands impatiently
expectant round the birthplace of Spirit as it becomes SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS [i.e. round the
manger in Bethlehem]. The [Jewish & Roman] grief and longing of the Unhappy Self-
consciousness which permeates them all is their centre and the common birth-pang of its
emergence (etc.)… (455).”
In Comedy, Hegel concludes, “the actual self of the actor coincides with what he impersonates
[Zeus, Apollo] … this is the return of everything universal into the Certainty of (the human actor’s)
Self, which is this complete loss of fear and of essential being as regards all that is ALIEN (namely,
the “gods” of Mount Olympus who have become vanishing “clouds”); this Self-Certainty is a state of
spiritual well-being and repose, such as is not to be found anywhere outside of Comedy (453).” The
religion of art has ended with the Divine as no longer set apart from Self-consciousness, which
necessarily leads us from an “ACTUAL human actor AS the god” (cf. “the Self is Absolute Being”) to
“God as an ACTUAL man” (Jesus of Nazareth: cf. “Absolute Being is the Self” [453]), which leads us
into
(C) REVEALED RELIGION. https://youtu.be/n_Dz14gbcAk
This is the final or absolute religion in which “Spirit will know itself as Spirit, AS an actual
individual human being,” albeit in the form of “picture thinking” (Vorstellung) and not yet in that
of the CONCEPT.
First, Hegel indicates the historical conditions that led to the final or “revealed religion.” For
example: “The misery of the contradiction in the Roman World is the Discipline [Zucht] of the
World … which compels personality or Ego to display its nothingness … The Temple of Zion is
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destroyed … and [as a result] the consciousness of Evil and the direction of the mind Godward
[now occurs] (cf. The Philosophy of History, Sibree 320-23).” What has now come on the scene as
the “counterpart and completion of the Comic ‘Happy’ Consciousness is the ‘Unhappy’
Consciousness” and the universal “grief” expressed in the saying that “GOD IS DEAD (455).”
—All the conditions needed to produce “the Spirit that is ITSELF conscious of itself as Spirit” are
at hand and “constitute the audience of Shapes which stand expectant round the birthplace of
Spirit as it becomes Self-Consciousness [i.e. round the manger at Bethlehem; Shapes such as
Roman Stoicism, Skepticism, Greek Comedy, Roman and Jewish misery of abandonment by God,
etc.] (456).” As Hegel continues: “This incarnation of the divine Being, the fact that it essentially
and directly has the shape of self-consciousness, is the simple CONTENT of the absolute
[revealed] religion (459).” Absolute Spirit is immediately present “as an ACTUAL MAN [such that
the believer immediately] sees, feels, and hears this divinity (458).” Hegel now famously says:
“God is attainable in pure speculative knowledge alone, and IS only in that knowledge, and IS
only that knowledge ITSELF, for God is Spirit (461).” Indeed Hegel says: “The hopes and
expectations of the world up till now had pressed forward solely to this revelation, to behold
what absolute Being is, and IN IT to find itself. The joy of beholding ITSELF in absolute Being
enters self-consciousness and seizes the whole world (461).” And this is because the Truth has
finally come to light that, “The divine nature is the same as the human, and this UNITY is what is
beheld (460).”
The problem here, however, is that as an immediate sensuous “other” it is only THIS INDIVIDUAL
self-consciousness which is Spirit and Divine, hence “Spirit as an INDIVIDUAL Self is not yet
equally the UNIVERSAL Self, the SELF OF EVERYONE (462).” – Hence, what must occur is not just
a “negation” (the Incarnation) but a “Negation of Negation” – a “death of God” and a
“resurrection” into UNIVERSALITY, the Universal Community, the details of which Hegel goes on
to unfold in his discussion of the “CONTENT” of revealed religion, which he divides into three
realms in which absolute Spirit manifests itself: pure thought, Vorstellung (or “picture- thinking”)
and self-consciousness.
FIRST: In the element of PURE THOUGHT absolute Spirit is portrayed as existing before the
“creation” of the world as the activity of a “Father” who begets an only “Son.” According to
Hegel this Vorstellung reflects the true process of Spirit or the Concept, which is the transition to
an Other and the knowing of Self in that Other. What religion is unaware of is the necessity for
the production of an Other or Son. The Father or Essence (Wesen) is only Spirit or God in
principle or in-itself (Ansich), is only a “meaning.” It becomes a fact or actual when it becomes an
Other, for-itself (Fur sich) or independent, that is, when it becomes the “Word.” The Word
(logos) is the Father’s or Essence’s knowledge of itself IN and AS the Son, which is Essence’s
existence for-itself and as an Other, independent and distinct from Essence. It is the “U-P-I”
process of the UNIVERSAL or abstract meaning instantiating itself in the PARTICULAR. Hegel
does not mention the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, i.e. the INDIVIDUAL, in his
narrative because the Holy Spirit or Spirit is just the KNOWLEDGE which the one has of itself in

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the other, the Father in the Son, the Universal in the Particular. “Spirit” for Hegel is a “three-in-
one,” but the third aspect is just the synthesis or UNION of the first two aspects of position and
opposition, in-itself and for-itself, or Self and Other. – This is the KNOWLEDGE that will become
the INDIVIDUALITY of the Spiritual Community, the World Community of immortal I’s.
SECOND: However, we cannot remain in this first realm of absolute Spirit where its differences
or moments only exist in pure thought and lack concreteness. In this realm “otherness is not as
such set up independently (466).” A transition must be made to a second realm of Vorstellung or
PICTURE-THINKING where absolute Spirit will manifest itself in an immediate and concrete
manner. Also, what religion understands to be a contingent and arbitrary event, namely, the
“creation of the world,” philosophy or Reason comprehends as the necessity of the Concept “in
its absolute movement (467).” Simply, the creation of the world, viewed as the Other of God, is
necessary because the Absolute must not only exist in principle, in thought, but in actuality as
well. That is, the overcoming of otherness occurring in the medium of pure thought is not a true
overcoming: only in the element of objective existence or “being-there” can there be a true
overcoming and a true Spirit which is absolute (also cf. the principle of POLARITY and
Encyclopedia §247).
Thus, in the realm of Picture-Thinking otherness as such is “set up independently.” It is called
“Picture-Thinking” because it is the form in which the “content” exists for the believer or
theologian who grasps it through such figurative ideas as “creation,” “fall,” and “incarnation.”
The process of Spirit manifested in pure thought must be duplicated here: Essence (Wesen) must
have knowledge of itself in this Other. This Other is divided into Nature and Self, which latter
because it is the aspect of being-for-itself or knowledge will be the vehicle for Spirit’s return
from otherness.
The Self is first characterized as evil. This is because it contraposes itself to the world and
“straightway ... becomes discordant with itself (468).” It becomes aware of the opposites of
good and evil through its aspect of knowledge or self-concentration (insichgehen). Indeed, the
world and all that is in it, being known as God’s Other (at least to Judaism) is necessarily evil or
tainted. Hence, only through an act of God’s intervention in the world can this Other of God be
redeemed and the Self unburdened of evil and freed of “sin” (hamarteia) or “separation” from
God a la Nietzsche.
The “Incarnation” of the Divine Being into the world, the “flesh,” is therefore of crucial
significance and indeed the main event for religious consciousness – it signifies that God’s Other
and man are “redeemed” and that evil has been vanquished. In Christ, the God-Man, the
separation between the Divine Being (the Essence) and the SELF has been annulled and
overcome. Divine Being and Self appear in a single individual; human and divine natures are

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revealed to be identical. In Christ we have a Self within this Other knowing itself to be God or
Essence, and knowledge of Self in Other is precisely what absolute Spirit is.2
Thus, Absolute Spirit has appeared as an individual self-consciousness. The next question
naturally concerns the relation of other self-consciousnesses to the individual self-consciousness
which is known to be divine being and absolute truth. Since the reconciliation of man with God
necessarily implies that man as such and God as such no longer exist, i.e., that man has
somehow been divinized or that the divine essence has been made available for man’s
appropriation, the question arises as to HOW man or the Self comes to partake of the divine
nature. For Hegel this question takes the form: How is God or God’s “individual” self-
consciousness universalized or made into “universal” self-consciousness?
THREE: This question takes us into the third element of Spirit, which is that of SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS or the spiritual “community” and communion. According to Hegel, in answer to
this question, the death of Christ, the “Mediator,” is the crucial event through which God’s
“particular independent existence” or “particular self-existence (476),” becomes universal self-
consciousness, signifying the “establishment of a community (471).”
On the “death of God” there are 3 points – the main problem is “picture-thinking,” the form in
which the Truth-Content is expressed. Also, here our initial unanswered questions will be
answered:
ONE: Hegel begins: “The death of the Mediator [Christ] is the death not only of [God’s] natural
aspect … but also of the abstraction of the divine Being [of God as ONLY “pure thought” and “up
in the sky”] (476).” Hegel goes on to say, what this means is simply the death of all
TRANSCENDENCE, that God has become completely IMMANENT and One with ourselves. He
says that this “death is the painful feeling of the Unhappy Consciousness that GOD HIMSELF IS
DEAD. [However and paradoxically] this hard saying is [really and in truth] the expression of
innermost SELF-Knowledge and the return of consciousness into the depths of the Night in
which ‘I = I’, a Night which no longer distinguishes or knows anything OUTSIDE OF IT… It is in fact
the loss of substance [of God] as over AGAINST consciousness. [It is the] KNOWING which is the
inbreathing of the Spirit, whereby Substance becomes Subject, by which [God’s] abstraction and

2
As regards the question as to whether Hegel holds to the divinity of Christ the answer is unequivocally yes. Here is
evidence from his writings. In the Philosophy of Nature Hegel says: "Spirit is posited as the contradiction existing
explicitly, for the Idea in its infinite freedom, and again in the form of individuality, are in objective contradiction... In
Christ, the contradiction is posited and overcome, as His life, passion, and resurrection.”

And in the Philosophy of History Hegel tells us in no uncertain terms: “Christ has appeared—a Man who is God—God
who is Man; and thereby peace and reconciliation have accrued to the world (his italics).” For additional evidence
one should refer to his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion and my article on Academia.edu, “Hegel On
Immortality.”

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lifelessness have died … {God] has thus become the ACTUAL and UNIVERSAL Self-Consciousness
[of the Community or Humanity itself].”
TWO: Hegel then draws attention to THE problem of revealed religion, its “picture-thinking,”
FIRST by connecting the result of “Self-Certain Spirit” with revealed religion’s result and truth.
The former had the “Concept of Spirit” which “recognized itself as the same as its opposite, the
recognition bursting forth as the YES between these extremes [of Acting and Judging
Conscience].” Hegel continues: “This Concept is intuitively [but not conceptually] apprehended
by the religious consciousness to which absolute Being is revealed and overcomes the
DIFFERENCE between its SELF and what it intuitively apprehends [God or Christ].” The result
being that, “the Self is ITSELF absolute Spirit [or God].”
THREE: “But,” Hegel continues, “the community is not yet perfected in its self-consciousness
[for] its CONTENT exists for it in the form of PICTURE-THINKING, and the DUALITY in this thinking
still attaches even to the actual spirituality of the community.” As a result, it cannot achieve in
the Here and Now TOTAL unification with the Divine: It is “still burdened with an unreconciled
split into a Here and a Beyond (463),” as well as a split into the PAST (2000 years ago) and the
FUTURE (when Christ will come again), leaving a God-forsaken vacuum in the PRESENT. Thus,
“Its own reconciliation enters its consciousness as something DISTANT, as something in the
distant FUTURE, just as the reconciliation which the other SELF (Jesus) achieved appears as
something in the distant PAST. … Its reconciliation is therefore in its heart, but its consciousness
is still divided against itself, and its actual world still disrupted. … The Spirit of the community is
thus in its IMMEDIATE consciousness divided from its RELIGIOUS consciousness … the UNITY of
the two is not yet realized (478).” In other words, when the community opens its eyes and stops
praying, it finds itself in an ALIEN world and universe which, as Jon Stewart says, is scary!
“[Because] it dwells in the realm of Picture-thinking … the universal Self of the community … can
ultimately NEVER overcome the particular God-man and must remain unhappy and alienated
(452)” – with an “endless, unquenchable, and unappeased longing” (Hegel, Early Theological
Writings). Stuck in its Picture-thinking (Father, Son, Creation, Fall, etc.) it takes these images in a
literal sense.
Next time we will take up “C (DD) ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE” where we will see how revealed
religion’s defect is remedied.
THANK YOU!

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 Lecture 9
Hegel’s PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT – “C (DD) ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE”
https://youtu.be/jOdntVYil7E

Welcome! Last time we discussed “C (CC) RELIGION” and its three parts, “(A) Natural Religion,”
“(B) Religion in the Form of Art,” and “(C) Revealed Religion.” Today we will take up the final
chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology and “Introduction” to Absolute Science, “C (DD) ABSOLUTE
KNOWLEDGE.”
“C. (DD). ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.”
In “Absolute Knowledge or rather Knowing”3 we overcome the defect of Revealed Religion, that
is, by replacing “picture-thinking” with the CONCEPT, or Religion’s “Content” with Morality’s
“Form.” To understand exactly HOW the defect is overcome, let’s first review what the defect in
Religion is. The defect in a word, as Hegel says, is that “Spirit’s religious consciousness [of God,
the absolute Being] is divided from its immediate consciousness (of the present world) (478)” –
that is, the present world does not have the “shape of Spirit” or is unspiritual. A key question is
thus: How does the world come to be “spiritual” or acquire the “shape of Spirit”? In brief,
“Spirit” for Hegel is simply “knowledge of SELF in OTHER.” Thus the world becomes “spiritual”
(or “Reich Gottes”) when consciousness, when the SELF, is able to see itSELF in the world and all
it contains.
Now, Hegel alluded to this defect at the beginning of his discussion of “Religion” where he
stated that: “the perfection of religion consists in … Spirit in its own world [its immediate
consciousness] AND Spirit in religion [its religious consciousness] … becoming the SAME or
IDENTICAL (412).” What is important, as we will see, is that by this “identity of the two” Hegel
means that “Spirit in religion” (which involves an other-worldliness or temporal and spatial
“beyond”) is to utterly collapse into and fuse with “Spirit in its own world,” specifically, that is,
into the “reciprocal recognition” that is absolute Spirit and Reich Gottes.
Hegel further says that it is precisely due to its “picture-thinking” that Religion itself is not able
to achieve its perfection and realize the identity of the two, which can only be realized by Spirit’s
transcending its “picture-thinking” (its mere “consciousness OF an Other or Object”) and
advancing to “Absolute Knowing” and the CONCEPT – that is, “in order wholly to resolve therein
the Form of Objectivity IN the CONCEPT which equally embraces within itself its own opposite
(416).” Indeed, Hegel further tells us that the CONCEPT and SPIRIT are one and the same! – And
this is because BOTH involve a “Knowledge of SELF in one’s Other or Opposite.”
Thus, as Hegel reveals in Religion’s final paragraph, Revealed Religion’s defect consists in a
DOUBLE alienation and dividedness. That is, due to its “picture-thinking” it is unable in the

3
Strictly speaking, here there is no “knowledge” or doctrinal content per se, it is the three parts of Absolute
Science, Logic, Nature, and Spirit, which comprise “absolute knowledge” in the strict sense.

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present to achieve a UNITY or reconciliation with (1) the absolute Being itself (God or Christ) and
(2) with the present World. The diagram below illustrates religion’s defect and double
alienation:

In the first paragraph of “Absolute Knowing” Hegel tells us the precise way Religion’s defect and
double alienation can be overcome, namely, by overcoming religion’s “picture-thinking and
FORM of Objectivity … [that is, its] consciousness of an Object as such (479)” – which, Hegel says,
was ALREADY overcome in the course of the Phenomenology and happened with the unification
of consciousness AND self-consciousness, which resulted in the unification of SELF and OBJECT!
– and, what is very important, this is a self-other UNITY which is “Spirit” precisely, as well as the
“Concept.”
Thus, the solution to the problem, to the defect, occurs when Spirit or consciousness is able, via
the Concept, to see just itSELF, BOTH in the “Object that is God,” and in the “Object that is the
World.” And this is exactly what Hegel sets out to do in this final chapter and shape of
consciousness Hegel calls “Absolute Knowing.” The goal and task here is to unify both
consciousness AND self-consciousness, and religion AND morality (or conscience).
Hegel begins by saying that, “consciousness must know the Object as itSELF (480),” something
that will make the Object a truly “spiritual being (480).” He then divides the task of overcoming
the double alienation into two parts:
In Part One, paragraphs 790-793, Hegel will show how the SELF will come to see itself in the
“Object that is the World.” In Part Two, paragraphs 794-797, he will show how the SELF will
come to see itself in the “Object that is God, the absolute Being or Christ.”

Before we begin, 3 points: https://youtu.be/WU10c0SXfMs

ONE: Hegel informs us not only that Religion contains and is the GROUND of all the shapes that
have preceded (e.g., Self-consciousness, Reason, and Spirit), but that Absolute Knowing, the final

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shape, is the Truth and GROUND of Religion itself and likewise contains all that has preceded,
including Religion!
TWO: In our first lecture we said the goal of the Phenomenology (“the science of the experience
of consciousness”) is Absolute Knowing and the ABSOLUTE CONCEPT, and this means that the
CONCEPT – aka Thought, the Self, Consciousness, the “I” – is ALL REALITY and all that exists AND
the singular result of our exit from Plato’s Cave. The CONCEPT is the standpoint of Absolute
Science and the beginning of the Science of Logic. The CONCEPT or Self, Thought (etc.) first
emerged as the Object or Reality at the end of Perception in “A: Consciousness” as the
“unconditioned universal,” and then became the main focus in “B: Self-consciousness.” Finally in
“C,” the unity of “A” and “B”, of Consciousness and Self-consciousness, we had “REASON” as the
certainty that consciousness, the “I”, is ALL REALITY, which Hegel also called the “Category” –
the unity of the “I” (self-consciousness) and Being. We also noted that Reason (and the
Category, etc.) did not become ALL REALITY until we reached SPIRIT, and then only at the close
of Spirit in Conscience, evil and forgiveness where we had the RECIPROCAL RECOGNITION of
Acting and Judging Conscience, which became absolute Spirit, God, and Reich Gottes and
brought the Phenomenology to a close (i.e., FOR US, not for consciousness itself). What we
learned, the Key to the book, is that absolute Spirit (“Spirit knowing itself as Spirit”) requires at
least TWO Selves who recognize each other as equals and as equally ALL REALITY. As Hegel said,
each Self or Conscience is a “U.I.”, a unity of Universality and Individuality, that is, each Self is
the CONCEPT itself which sees only itself in its opposite: we thus have here “One PURE
KNOWING knowing another PURE KNOWING.” It is precisely by enlisting this “conceptual
recognition” that Hegel will solve the issue of overcoming the believer’s alienation and
separation from the absolute Being (or God). This “KNOWING of KNOWING” is also the key to
THREE: “Absolute Knowing” and its final result that there IS only ONE Concept, ONE Self, ONE
Consciousness. In brief: Hegel says in the Science of Logic that “Science presupposes the
OPPOSITION of consciousness [to an Object] has been overcome” (Miller 49, 60), and in the
Phenomenology’s Introduction that the goal is “the point where Knowing no longer needs to go
beyond itself (51).” This happens precisely when Knowing or Consciousness AND its Object can
no longer be distinguished from each other. And THIS happens precisely in the “reciprocal
recognition” of the Two Consciences where both AS pure knowing are absolutely the SAME,
there being NO difference between them. As a result, they both collapse into ONE KNOWING,
ONE Self, ONE Consciousness, ONE Concept – that is, into ABSOLUTE KNOWING. Further, this
Absolute Knowing or “Knowing/Thinking” is a “SUBJECT/OBJECT” Knowing/Thinking, which
means that it is OBJECTIVE as well as SUBJECTIVE and is thus able to know ALL Objects in the
universe as they are in themselves (which our own p-sciences cannot do or claim to do). Thus
ABSOLUTE KNOWING/THINKING/CONCEIVING, or the ABSOLUTE CONCEPT, encompasses ALL
objectivity within itself. As Hegel says, “The CONCEPT contains within itself the infinite realm of
all that is objective [Butler’s Hegel’s Logic p. 212].”
OK. Part One: let’s now see in paragraphs 790-793 how the SELF will come to see itself first in
the “Object that is the World.” Hegel begins by saying that the Object must be known as SELF in
its immediacy (qua Sense-certainty), in its determinacy or relation (qua Perception), and in its
essence or universality (qua Understanding). Hegel reminds us that, first, in Observing Reason
the outcome was that “The I or SELF is a THING,” a sensuous immediate Thing (e.g. a “skull”),
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meaning that the SELF or Self-consciousness “is in itself the objectively real world (211).”
Second, in Pure Insight, Enlightenment, and Utility, the THING or Object became totally
transcended; as Hegel says, “in itself the Thing is nothing and has meaning only in relation and
through the ‘I’.” Indeed, “the cultivated self-consciousness which has traversed the world of self-
alienated Spirit has … produced the Thing as its OWN SELF (481).” And note, by “Thing” is meant
this pen, this planet, in fact everyTHING – the whole Universe is nothing but SELF. Finally, Hegel
reminds us that in Moral Self-consciousness “the Thing is known as SELF not only qua immediacy
and qua determinacy but qua essence or inner being (481).” That is, the Moral Self knows that its
KNOWLEDGE is alone essential, “that BEING [Thinghood, the Object] is simply and solely pure
WILLING and KNOWING (481).” And as Conscience “it knows that its existence is the pure
certainty of itSELF … [that] the objective element into which it puts itself when it Acts, is nothing
other than the SELF’S pure Knowledge of itself (482).” Thus, we have the first of the two
reconciliations of consciousness and self-consciousness: the SELF sees nothing but itself in the
Object that is the World. And this is “Spirit in its own world,” that is, the World is nothing but
SPIRIT, Spirit and the World are one.

https://youtu.be/bOfLAVCM_cI

In Part Two we will now see in paragraphs 794-797 how the SELF comes to see itself in the
“Object that is God, the absolute Being or Christ.” Here we simply apply the CONCEPT to the
CONTENT of Religion – that is, the CONCEPT which emerged in Conscience in the “Beautiful
Soul,” which IS “the Divine’s intuition of itself” AND splits up into Acting and Judging Conscience.
We thus want to see ourselves in Religion’s Content and Object: God or absolute Being. The way
this happens is that the CONCEPT of Conscience is such that it “contains both its own Self and its
opposite (483).” What Hegel does, in effect, is to apply and connect the “dialectic” of Acting and
Judging Conscience to the “dialectic” of the “Incarnation” in Religion which Hegel lays out in
paragraphs 755-759, where we have a “reciprocal externalization or kenosis [an “emptying”]” on
the part of actual Self-consciousness AND God or Substance, “each becoming the other [and]
Spirit coming into existence as their UNITY (457).” —A kenosis in which each side renounces its
isolated, one-sided existence: God or Substance AS pure Thought and UNIVERSAL, Self-
consciousness AS actual and INDIVIDUAL.
In Religion, as Hegel says, this dialectic and kenosis resulting in Spirit is only IN-ITSELF since it
exists in “picture-thinking.” That is, the renouncing of God’s separate existence and his
unification with the SELF of Self-consciousness is not known to be THE SELF’S OWN ACTION.
Hence, because the kenosis and unification must be FOR-ITSELF (and not just IN-ITSELF and
hidden) it must therefore happen in the dialectic of Conscience VIA the Concept. Hegel first
identifies this problem at the end of Religion:
“It grasps [the unification of itself and God] as the picture-thought of something which is
so, NOT in virtue of its Concept, but as the deed of an alien satisfaction … [it doesn’t
realize] that this depth of the pure Self is the power by which the abstract divine Being is
drawn down from its abstraction and raised to a Self… The ACTION of the Self retains
towards [the divine Being] this negative meaning because the externalization, the
kenosis of Substance [or God], is taken by the Self to be an ACTION implicit in the nature

87
 of Substance [of God]; the [religious] Self does not grasp and truly comprehend it, or
does not find [this kenosis or unification of itself and God] in ITS OWN ACTION as such
(477-478).”
This defect in Religion is made good in the dialectic of Acting and Judging Conscience and
reciprocal recognition where the kenosis and externalization is known to be THE SELF’S OWN
ACTION! As Hegel says,
“Now, what at first happens in principle or in itself [in Religion] is at once explicitly … for
consciousness and is ITS VERY OWN ACT. The same thing that is already posited in
principle ‘IN ITSELF’ is now therefore [posited ‘FOR ITSELF’; it] repeats itself as
consciousnesses KNOWLEDGE of it and conscious ACT. Each in relation to the other [e.g.,
Judging in relation to Acting Conscience; God in relation to the individual Self] lets go or
renounces its independent aspect” – which is the same renunciation that happened in
Religion, but is now the SELF’S “OWN ACT OF RENUNCIATION (484)” – to wit: “[Judging
Conscience] renounces the obstinacy of its abstract universality and in so doing dies to its
lifeless Self (485).”
The result is the absolute, total unification of the SELF and GOD. – And this is exactly what Hegel
draws attention to at the end of Religion (477) where he speaks about the “Concept of Spirit”
that was achieved in Conscience, evil and forgiveness (that is, when both Consciences
“recognized themselves as the SAME as their opposite”) – and then says that this Concept “is
INTUITIVELY apprehended by the religious consciousness to which God, Christ, the absolute
Being is revealed”; the result being that God and the Self, Substance and Subject, are the SAME.
Note ALSO that when Hegel says at Encyclopedia §194a1 that “Our true and essential Self is
God” and hence that “The SELF is GOD,” it is important to understand that by the “Self” Hegel
means one’s PURE Self, not one’s EMPIRICAL Self (or personal ego). As Hegel says in the
Philosophy of History: “One attains the Truth only by surrendering to PURE SELF-
CONSCIOUSNESS (Sibree 328)” – which is another word for the “Absolute I,” the “One
Consciousness,” which everyone shares in common.
– Now of course, this unity of the Self and God in religion is only “intuitively” apprehended and
not “conceptually” comprehended, hence is only perfected in Absolute Knowing – where
ANOTHER defect of religion is now also remedied. The defect, namely, that “Spirit” must be
known not only as the historical individual “Jesus” but as “the Self of everyone (462),” which has
just happened. That is, once I see myself (via the Concept) IN and as the SAME as Jesus, the God-
Man, I too become “Spirit” … and so do you. Thus, we ALL see Jesus, the God-Man, Spirit in and
as each other (what is known as “Namaste”). Also, since Jesus is ALL REALITY, and I am the SAME
as him, I too (and you as well) become ALL REALITY – and immortal and eternal (as Hegel says:
“the individual as such is eternal and immortal,” Enc. §482z and PR vol. 3, 302-4; also see my
article, Hegel On Immortality, on Academia.edu).
Fichte, Hegel’s contemporary and teacher, says the same thing as well in his Doctrine of Religion
or Way to the Blessed Life. For example: “[What Jesus is really saying in his shocking statement
at John 6:53 is that] we ARE to become wholly and entirely Jesus Christ himself, the very eternal
Word made flesh and blood itself.” Fichte also infers that for the most part the Christian
community today is still living in the dark or middle ages since it still regards Jesus as “that

88
unattainable ideal into which he was transformed by the spiritual poverty of after-ages (Kroeger,
Lecture VI).”
In the key paragraph 797 Hegel concludes: “Thus, what in Religion was CONTENT or a form for
picturing an Other [“Jesus up in the sky”], is here the SELF’S OWN ACT; for the CONCEPT requires
the CONTENT to be the SELF’S OWN ACT. For this CONCEPT is the [Absolute] Knowledge of the
SELF’s Act within itself as ALL ESSENTIALITY and ALL EXISTENCE [meaning that the SELF – YOUR
SELF – is ALL REALITY and ALL TRUTH]. It is the Knowledge of this Subject [or Self] as Substance
[God or Being] (485).” Hegel continues: “This last shape of Spirit is ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE or
KNOWING: it is the SPIRIT which gives its complete and true CONTENT [of Religion] the FORM of
the SELF and thereby realizes its CONCEPT, remaining within its CONCEPT in this realization. It is
Spirit that knows itself in the shape of Spirit [that is, in the shape of the CONCEPT!].”
What is more, says Hegel, is that: “TRUTH is now identical with CERTAINTY, … for TRUTH is the
CONTENT, which in Religion is still not identical with its Certainty. But now Religion’s CONTENT
[God] has received the shape of the SELF… [Thus Spirit, qua the CONCEPT] has become the
element of EXISTENCE and the FORM OF OBJECTIVITY for Consciousness (486).” – (Hence, à la
Fichte, “nothing but the ‘I’, the SELF, the CONCEPT, anywhere exists!”). Finally, “SPIRIT (or GOD)
appearing in consciousness in this element [of the CONCEPT, the SELF], is precisely [ABSOLUTE]
SCIENCE.”
And Science or Absolute Knowing is simply the ONE SELF or CONSCIOUSNESS. “It is ‘I’, that is
THIS ‘I’ and no other ‘I’ … and no less UNIVERSAL [or ALL] ‘I’ (486).” That is, it is “an ‘I’ that is
‘We’ and a ‘We’ that is ‘I’ (110)” – simply, a “U.I.,” a “Universal Individual.”

https://youtu.be/gb4-IYPPMtQ

We have thus seen how Hegel, in Part One and Part Two of the Phenomenology’s final chapter,
has remedied the defect of revealed religion and its double alienation with regard to the “Object
that is the World” and the “Object that is God,” which has resulted in “Absolute Knowing” and
the “Absolute Concept.” The diagrams below represent Religion’s defect and Absolute
Knowing’s resolution of it:

89
Lastly, after Hegel briefly summarizes the historical process that produced Absolute Knowing –
starting with the primitive Christian community, through the Medieval and into the Modern
Period, beginning with Descartes and ending with Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel himself –
after this summary Hegel gives a brief sketch of Absolute Science and the Sciences of Logic,
Nature and Spirit, and ends the Phenomenology with that famous quote from Schiller’s poem:
“Only from the Chalice of this realm of Spirits foams forth to God his infinity.”
In the Fall 2019 I will be taking up Hegel’s Science of Logic, which will conclude our study of
Hegel’s System of Absolute Science. As for the question of the difference between the
Phenomenology and The Science of Logic, in brief and as Hegel says: “Spirit having won the
CONCEPT [Absolute Knowledge] displays its existence and movement in this ether of its life and
is SCIENCE [notably, LOGIC]. In LOGIC, the moments of Spirit’s movement no longer show
themselves as specific shapes of consciousness but – since consciousness’s difference [from its

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Object] has returned into the SELF – as specific CONCEPTS and as their organic self-grounded
movement (491).” That is, the essential content and movement of the Phenomenology and the
Logic are same, however the LOGIC studies the CONCEPT and its development in pure THOUGHT
alone as “freed from its appearance in consciousness” and from its association with Picture-
Thinking and its “historical” contents (e.g., Master-Slave, the Roman World, Money and Politics,
the French Revolution, Art, etc).
I will close with a brief summary of Absolute Science – the Science of the Absolute’s, Being’s, the
Universe’s, Knowledge of itself. — As we saw, the Phenomenology, the Introduction to Science,
ended with the Absolute CONCEPT – with the collapse of the opposition, the difference,
between Consciousness and its Object, between Knowing and the Truth. We now have a single
Knowing, Consciousness, CONCEPT, which is totally “absolved” from relation to an “other.” – A
CONCEPT, thought or thinking, that is ALL REALITY. As Hegel says, “The Concept is true Being,
and Being is the Concept.” Nothing but the CONCEPT exists. We are now ready to do Absolute
Science, the Science of the Absolute, which is a self-contained “circle” and begins with the
Science of Logic which, Hegel says, “presents God as he is in his eternal essence prior to the
creation of nature and finite spirit [or Man].” The “CIRCLE” is: “Logic–Nature–Spirit–and back to
Logic.”
In brief: We begin with LOGIC, with the CONCEPT or Thought as All Reality and the only Reality,
as Aristotle and Hegel say, with “noesis noeseos,” the “Thought of Thought” (Enc. §577), also
called the “IDEA” (in honor of Plato). LOGIC is the CONCEPT or IDEA in itself and as abstract, not
yet realized or for itself. It is the realm of Pure Thought, the INNER, the Subjective. Here,
beginning with pure Being, we trace the development of categories and thought-determinations
into the Absolute IDEA. Then, immediately, and because of “polarity” (“you can’t have one
without the other,” or “all determination is negation”) we have Thought’s Opposite: NATURE,
Matter, Extension, the OUTER Idea, Objectivity. And because NATURE (parts outside parts)
contradicts the unity of LOGIC and Thought, NATURE gradually sets itself aside and returns to
Unity as SPIRIT, which is the unity of LOGIC and NATURE, INNER and OUTER, Thought and
Matter. SPIRIT begins with “Soul” and we watch it develop into absolute SPIRIT, ending in Art,
Religion, and philosophical Science, that is, LOGIC. THIS is the Circle of Science: we start with
LOGIC (the Truth, Spirit, the Idea, in itself, unactualized), advance to NATURE (the Truth outside
of itself), and then to SPIRIT – the Truth, Spirit, Idea, fully actualized as the “self-knowing Truth”
(§381,z. §574), which happens in LOGIC. We have returned to the beginning, the Circle of
Science is now complete! As Hegel says at the end of the Science of Logic: “[After the LOGIC, the
Idea, releases itself as NATURE] it thereby only posits for itself the mediation out of which the
CONCEPT ascends as a free existence … that completes its self-liberation in the Science of Spirit,
and finds the supreme CONCEPT of itself in the Science of Logic as the self-comprehending pure
CONCEPT (Miller 844).”
I cannot end without mentioning again the “disease” (I can find no better word for it) afflicting
the Hegel community, that is, those so-called “realist” Hegelians who have yet to exit Plato’s
Cave, and who hold that it is Hegel’s view that Nature, Matter, Sense-individuals, have true, self-
subsistent, independent being, in and for themselves apart from Spirit. This is clearly
contradicted by Hegel in 14 places. For example: “The being of Nature is essentially IDEALITY; as
only relative, Nature is related to a first (§247,z).” “Spirit is the Truth of Nature … Nature in its
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own self sublates itself as what is UNTRUE (§388).” “Spirit is the universal immateriality of
Nature and Matter (§389,z).” Finally, from the Phenomenology, Hegel says that even the animals
are not as stupid as these realist metaphysicians who give absolute reality to sensuous things
and sense-objects! Indeed, “all Nature, like the animals, celebrates these open mysteries which
teach the truth about sensuous things (65)!”

See you in the Fall when we’ll take up Hegel’s

Science of Logic - “God before Creation!”
THANK YOU!

“We belong to the New Race [of Jedi] who no longer seek for immortality and GOD
outside themselves—but rather inside themselves.”4
Hegel, Schelling, and Hölderlin—in college, 1796

4
Schelling, Hölderlin, and Hegel’s, Earliest System-Programme (Berne, 1796), trans. by H. Harris in Hegel’s
Development, Towards the Sunlight, 1770-1801, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972) 510-512.

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 The Great Awakening (1969)
“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must
first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God’s name is Abraxas.” Hesse

We are all waiting to be born. To take that great leap

From becoming to full membership in being.
We wait anxiously for eons and eternities.
There is a moral instinct in all life.
There is within all beings an inner tendency, a regulator,
Which keeps the project of life on course, so that it never
Strays too far from its central course to Itself.
Man must learn to center himself on the path to his
Evolutionary destiny. The path is felt as an inner vibration,
Steady, constant.
It is the life force which bears the seed of liberation
And consummation.
All of our lives, thus far, have been a pre-uterine existence
In a world yet to see the Great Light that sustains the creation.
There is a great stirring.
We are all slowly awakening from a long sleep.
Humanity has been sleeping. Its magic seed has been
Patiently preserved through the centuries of history—the
Course of man’s restless activities. Some of us are beginning
To catch a glimpse of that Blinding Sublime Light, of that
Great Reality awaiting man’s assent.
Our perceptions are beginning to clear.
We are learning how to focus ourselves on that source,
That sound, that dwells in each of us—that great within.
We must help others learn to fly, or they will perish
In the flood of the great Awakening.
You should not be afraid of the signs of the awakening, -
The strange crackling sound in your ears,
The odd instances of unfamiliar frequencies and fragrances
Coming from within, of déjà vu, of synesthesia, the bursting
Of the unconscious, the great moral discontent, the revolution,
The Awakening…….

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 “Sensitivity and the Fiction of the Ego”
(Course Flyer, June, 1969)

Listen Humanity, we are all one, we are all beautiful people.

The separate Ego is just an elaborate, complex defense barrier
implanted in us by the “others” in our reality—our parents, peers,
and the ambiguous, ubiquitous, indeed, non-existent “they.”
In actuality we are all part of the same supra-mind,
and have the potentiality to reduce the ego-mind to such a degree
that we can enter into each other’s minds and hearts.
This will bring about a total elimination of feelings we label and call anxiety,
hang-ups, and tensions of all kinds.
The new individual will be in continual conscious integration—
“plugged in”—with the world around him/her at all times,
he will never feel alone, or alien to a strange, material universe.
He will finally be at home in the cosmos.
He will have no reason, nor feel the need to enclose himself in separate political
states and engage himself in the continual, senseless struggle
for domination of man and nature.
He will have no reason or cause to build walls between his neighbor,
to build partitions within his home,
and to hide his thoughts and feelings from others.
The ego-personality is in its truest sense a fiction, an illusion,
and a hoax of the highest kind, and it is in no way essential
to the manifestation of individuality in man.
We are all aspects of the same infinite process,
all branches of the same cosmic tree—
people fail to realize that differentiation does not imply separation.
We are all God, we are all together, we are all One.
Wake up people, stop sleeping in the great western, material illusion,
Let us proclaim it to the world.
This is the dawn of the Age of Aquarius.
The New Humanity is about to usher in,
it will not be stopped or deterred.
It has been long overdue, it will not wait any longer.
Let us welcome it with all the warmth and compassion
We as human beings can give.

“Our true and essential self is God.” Hegel

“God is to be determined as identical with my I.” Schelling
“Man ... is indeed in reality God Himself.” Fichte
“I said you are Gods and Goddesses!” Psalms, 82,6, Jesus, John 10,34

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wolfgang Bonsiepen. G.W.F. Hegel: Phänomenologie des Geistes.

H.S. Harris. Hegel’s Ladder.
Stephen Houlgate. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Jean Hyppolite. Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Quentin Lauer. A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Robert Stern. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Jon Stewart. The Unity of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Richard Dien Winfield. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Rethinking in 17
Lectures.

www.HistoryisOver.com

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