{"id":5393,"date":"2010-04-03T21:40:13","date_gmt":"2010-04-04T01:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=5393"},"modified":"2012-10-12T23:11:08","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T04:11:08","slug":"houlgate-hegel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2010\/04\/03\/houlgate-hegel\/","title":{"rendered":"houlgate hegel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houlgate, S. Phenomenology of Spirit<\/em><\/p>\n

This is not to deny that, like Descartes in the Meditations, I can \u201cshut my eyes, stop my ears, withdraw all my senses\u201d and \u201cconverse with myself\u201d in total separation from things.\u00a0 What can be reached through Cartesian doubt, however, is no more than abstract self-consciousness, because such doubt abstracts from the conditions under which alone concrete, all-embracing self-consciousness is possible: namely, consciousness of an external world in relation to which we find ourselves.\u00a0 … true self-consciousness itself does not merely abstract from but (to borrow Kant\u2019s term) \u201caccompanies\u201d our consciousness of objects.<\/p>\n

From Hegel\u2019s point of view, Descartes overlooks the moment of other-relatedness that is essential to true consciousness of oneself<\/strong>. Yet there is nevertheless something to be learned from Descartes about true self-consciousness: for in remaining conscious of real, external objects, self-consciousness must also seek to negate those
\nobjects.<\/p>\n

Consciousness finds itself in what is other than it; but the very otherness of the objects I encounter inevitably prevents me from relating wholly to myself. In order to achieve unalloyed self-consciousness, therefore, I must regard the object before me as something that is not essentially other than or independent of me after all, but there merely for me. I continue to consider the object to be real, and (unlike Descartes) do not declare it to be a figment of my imagination; but I deem it to offer no resistance to me and to yield to my ability to negate or consume it for my own satisfaction and self-enjoyment.<\/p>\n

Insofar as self-consciousness relates to itself through negating objects around it, it is, in Hegel\u2019s word, desire <\/strong>(Begierde<\/em>). <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Self-consciousness necessarily takes the form of desire, therefore, because Descartes is halfright: consciousness does enhance its sense of itself by negating the objects around it, but it directs its activity of negation at a realm of objects whose reality is not in doubt and that, consequently, forever remains to be negated.<\/p>\n

Concrete self-consciousness is not immediate self-awareness, but self-awareness mediated by and inseparable from the awareness of what is other. Self-consciousness is interested in itself above all, and yet, as a complex form of consciousness, it is necessarily related to external things. If it is to attain an undiluted consciousness of itself, it must thus negate and destroy the other things it encounters.<\/p>\n

As this activity of negating what is other than itself, self-consciousness is desire<\/strong>. In Hegel\u2019s own words, the origin of desire is thus the fact that \u201cself-consciousness is . . . essentially the return from otherness.\u201d Note that what we desire, in Hegel\u2019s view, is not the object as such, but rather, as Jean Hyppolite puts it, \u201cthe unity of the I with itself.\u201d If Hegel is right, in seeking to enjoy the object, we are in fact seeking to enjoy ourselves.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not to deny that, like Descartes in the Meditations, I can \u201cshut my eyes,
\nstop my ears, withdraw all my senses\u201d and \u201cconverse with myself\u201d in total separation from things.7 What can be reached through Cartesian doubt, however, is no more than abstract self-consciousness, because such doubt abstracts from the conditions under which alone concrete, all-embracing self-consciousness is possible: namely, consciousness of an external world in relation to which we find ourselves. As we shall
\nsee below, Hegel acknowledges that such abstract self-consciousness is possible and is an important moment of true, concrete self-consciousness. He claims, however, that true self-consciousness itself does not merely abstract from but (to borrow Kant\u2019s term) \u201caccompanies\u201d our consciousness of objects.
\nFrom Hegel\u2019s point of view, Descartes overlooks the moment of other-relatedness that is essential to true consciousness of oneself. Yet there is nevertheless something to be learned from Descartes about true self-consciousness: for in remaining conscious of real, external objects, self-consciousness must also seek to negate those objects. Consciousness finds itself in what is other than it; but the very otherness of
\nthe objects I encounter inevitably prevents me from relating wholly to myself. In order to achieve unalloyed self-consciousness, therefore, I must regard the object before me as something that is not essentially other than or independent of me after all, but there merely for me. I continue to consider the object to be real, and (unlike Descartes) do not declare it to be a figment of my imagination; but I deem it to offer
\nno resistance to me and to yield to my ability to negate or consume it for my own satisfaction and self-enjoyment. Insofar as self-consciousness relates to itself through negating objects around it, it is, in Hegel\u2019s word, desire (Begierde). Selfconsciousness necessarily takes the form of desire, therefore, because Descartes is halfright: consciousness does enhance its sense of itself by negating the objects around
\nit, but it directs its activity of negation at a realm of objects whose reality is not in doubt and that, consequently, forever remains to be negated.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houlgate, S. Phenomenology of Spirit This is not to deny that, like Descartes in the Meditations, I can \u201cshut my eyes, stop my ears, withdraw all my senses\u201d and \u201cconverse with myself\u201d in total separation from things.\u00a0 What can be reached through Cartesian doubt, however, is no more than abstract self-consciousness, because such doubt abstracts … Continue reading “houlgate hegel”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hegel","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5393"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9544,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions\/9544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}