hegel, g.w.f. - the jena lectures on the philosophy of spirit (18o5-6).pdf

7/21/2019 Hegel, G.W.F. - The Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit (18O5-6).pdf

1/96

H E G E L

and the

H U M A N

SPIRIT

A translation of

the lena Lectures

on the Philosophy

of Spirit (18O5-6)wi th commentary

by

LEO RAUCH

Wayne State University Press Detroit 1983


2/96

Copyright 1983 by Wayne State University Press,

Detroit, Michigan 48202. All rights are reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced

without formal permission.

The translation of the text is from G. W. F. Hegel,

Gesammelte Werke,

Volume 8:

fenaer Systementwurfe

III

(Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1976), edited by

Rolf-P. Horstmann with Johann Heinrich Trede.

By permission of the copyright holder,

the Rheinisch-Westfahsche Akademie der

Wissenschaften in Diisseldorf.

Libraryof Congress Cataloging in Publ ica t ion Data

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831.

Hegel and the human spirit.

Translation of the text is from G.W.F. Hegel,

Gesammelte Werke, Volume 8: Jenaer Systementwurfe III

(Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1976) T.p. verso.

Bibliography: p.

1.

PhilosophyAddresses, essays, lectures.

I. Rauch, Leo. II. Title.

B2908 1983 193 83-12509

ISBN: 0-8143-1739-1

To Gil a

.

. .whose ideait

/ \

M

b

*i


3/96

CONTENTS

Preface 9

Introduction: On Hegel's Concept of Spirit

15

G. W. F. Hegel:

The Philosophy of Spirit

(1805-6) 83

P A R T I .

Spi r i t Accord ing to I t s Concept

85

A. Intelligence

85

B.

Will

99

P A R T I I .

Actual Sp i r i t

11 9

A.

Recognition

12 0

i. Immediate Recognition

12 0

ii.

Contract

12 4

i i i. Crime and P unishment

12 8

B.

The Coercive Law

13 2

i. [Law and Marriage]

13 4

ii. [Law and Property]

13 8

iii.

[Judicial Force]

14 1

iv. [Law, Life, and Death]

14 5

P A R T I I I .

C o n s t i t u t i o n

15 1

A. Classes: The Nature of Self-Ordering Spirit

16 2

i. The Lower Classes and Their Outlooks

16 3

ii .

The Universal Class

16 7

B.

Government: The Self-Certain Spirit of Nature

17 1

C. Art, Religion, and Science

17 3


4/96

PREFACE

On October 13, 1806, Jena fell to Napoleon's

army. Hegel saw the great manhimself, history focused to a

single point, "t his w orld-soul . . . on horseback." Just a few

days before, Hegel had sent the first half of his

Phenomenol-

ogy f Spirit

to his friend Niethammer in Bamberg, who was

to relay the manuscript to the publisher. Despite Hegel's en-

thusiasm for Napoleon, there was considerable danger. A few

days later, Hegel fled his house and the city, carrying the last

pages of the

Phenomenology

with him. Tradition has it that

he finished them amidst the sounds of the battle.

Hegel liked to see contemporary events, and philosophy

itself,

in global terms; for it is by reference to the cosmic, the

universal, that the particular gets its meaning. Hegel saw Na-

poleon, the "world-soul on horseback" (which phrase the

French eventually mistranslated asla raison a cheval),as the

unwitting instrument for the cosmic emergence of historical

self-consciousness. Hegel's teaching and writing had well pre-

pared him for this sort of perspective, this way of seeing

everything in the broadest possible context. Indeed, in the

preface to the Phenomenology written only after the main

text had been completed, and possibly with the Napoleonic

army already in view, Hegel says: "The true is the totality."

Any partial "truth" would run afoul of its opposite and be

contradicted by it. Only the entirety, Hegel believed, can be

trusted to give the parts their proper meaning. Only a com-


5/96

Preface

plete world-system can enable us to understand the details

whethe r it be a "deta il" such as the battle of Jena, or a philo-

sophical "truth/

7

When Hegel came to Jena, in 1801, it was the center of

philosophy in Germany. At the University, twelve men had

been teaching philosophy, among them Schiller, Fichte (until

1799), the Schlegels, and Schelling. Early in 1801, Hegel left

Frankfurt and accepted Schelling's invitation to come and stay

with him. Soon thereafter, Hegel wrote a book entitled

Th e

Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems of Phi-

losophy. The time must have been an exciting and crowded

one for him. A t the end of the sum mer semester, he submitted

a postdoctoral dissertation (on planetary orbits) as a way of

applying for a teaching post at the University. He took the

qualifying examina tion and was awarded the right to lecture. It

was his thirty-first birthday. He began as aPrivatdozentin the

winter term of 1801-2. Two years later, he announced that he

would present his entire philosophy as a unified w orld-system.

The lecture series of 1803-4 and 1805-6 constitute two ver-

sions of that system, and a part of the latter series makes up the

subject of this book. In February, 1805, he was promoted to

associate professor, and shortly thereafter decided to publish

th e Phenomenology,on which he had been working.

The Phenomenology of Spirit is Hegel's greatest work and

and probably one of the ten most profound works in all phi-

losophy. It has continued to fascinate, for its symphonic com-

plexity as for its gothic mysteries. Many of the ideas dis-

cussed in the

Phenomenology

were first aired in Hegel's Jena

lectures of 1803 to 1806. This feverish period saw Hegel's first

approaches to themes such as praxis, recognition, alienation,

and the life and death of cultures. These ideas, beyond their

value in and for themselves, have taken their place in the

body of world tho ught, and have had an enormous impact on,

for exam ple, Marxism, existentialism, and the social sciences.

But it was here that they were given their first formulation.

It was the Phenomenology, however, that had the lasting

impact, and these lectures were forgotten. Not until a century

after Hegel's death were the Jena lectures published. In 1931,

10

Preface

the 1805-6 lectures were published by Johannes Hoffmeister

as Jenenser Realphilosophie II. In the next year, the 1803-4

lectures were published asJenenserRealphilosophie I. hi 1976,

a critical edition of the 1805-6 lectures was issued by the

Rhine-W estphalian A cademy of Sciences, as part of a new and

comprehensive edition of Hegel's writings. The translation,

publication, and discussion of this Jena material h as lagged far

behind its interest and effect. No English translation has yet

been done of the 1 805-6 series of lectures on the philosophyof

Nature and on the philosophy of Spirit; nor has any book been

devoted in its entirety to them, even though the lectures on the

philosophy of Spirit have been discussed extensively in the

works of Lukacs, Marcuse, Habermas, and Avineri, among

others, and have excited considerable curiosity. (As for the

1805-6 lectures on the philosophy of Nature, no doubt some-

one will be coming forward with a translation of them before

long.)

Each series of the Jena lectures was offered as a world-

system: both a philosophy of nature and a philosophy of the

human spirit. The problem facing any commentator on them,

however, is that they are lecture notes, not finished texts.

Many points are left cryptic, perhaps meant to be expanded in

class discussion. Thoughts are often left unconnected, and

connecting sentences must be interpolated. There are exten-

sive marginal notes, some of great interest, but it is not al-

ways clear what point in the text they are meant to illumi-

nate. In this respect, the 1976 Academy edition sometimes

differs radically from the 1931 edition, appending a note to a

different place in the text and thus giving it a different con-

text of meaning. (A look at the actual manuscript shows how

tenuous all this is.) Some statements merely hint at what

they mean, and the commentator is on thin ice in trying to

interpret them. Of course, one can turn to other writings of

Hegel in support of one interpretation or another, but this

also has its dangers and difficulties.

On one hand, Hegel's thinking is all of a piece: his ideas, in

1805,

are continuous with those of 1821 and after. It is as

though he knew, from the very beginning of his mature think-

11


6/96

P r e f a c e

ing, exactly what his philosophy was and where it would take

him, and he sim ply set about expounding it. For this reason it

would seem perfectly legitimate to rely on a passage, say, in his

Encyclopaedia(1817) to illumin ate some dark point in the Jena

lectures of 1805. The trouble with that approach, however, is

that the consistency we see is established inductively: itfol-

lows from the texts, but cannot dictate their course. Accord-

ingly, no reference to a later work can serve to establish con-

clusively anything about the earlier work and therefore many

of the dark points must remain dark. We must remember that

what we have here are lecture notes, to which Hegel made

numerous marginal additions which are merely

keys,

not open

doors to his full intentionsand these keys are often keys for

him alone. Sometim es Hegel jots down a word or phrase, and

its connection to the context is clear; sometim es it is not. The

manuscripts themselves resemble the scores of Beethoven

more than Mozart, with numerous changes and additions, de-

letions and ins ertions. Hegel will sometimes let himselfgoin a

marginal passage which runs on for pages and seems to depart

from the context which inspired it. T he scholars of the Acad-

emy have done an outstanding job in putting the manuscripts

together, even if, in some instances, you can see them guess-

ing. The reader of the translation presented here will have to

keep this in mind, and read the footnotes not as the clarifying

additions that footnotes are usually intended to

be,

but as after-

thoughts , hints at emerging lines of thinking which Hegel may

have intended to follow up in the presentation of his lectures,

but did not do so in the lectures as written out.

In most of the editorial decisions, I have followed the lead

of the 1976 edition, especially in regard to specific points of

phrasing and the placing of the marginal notes. The editors of

the new edition have obviously been far more scrupulous in

their reading tha n Hoffm eister was in 1931. I have followed

neither edition slavishly, however, and have broken up para-

graphs and changed punctuation in what I felt were the inter-

ests of clarity. In some cases I have taken the liberty of "at-

taching" a marginal note to a point a few words prior to or

after the place assigned to it in the 1976 edition, on the

12

Preface

grounds that my placement seems to make better sense. But

in no cases are these editorial liberties of a controversial na-

ture, and whenever an explanatory woisd-or phrase has been

added by me, this has been indicated by square brackets.

(Where a marginal note of Hegel's is a word or phrase ap-

pended to a sentence in the text, I have put the phrase in a

footnote without capitalizing the initial letter, to indicate

that it is a continuation of the sentence. Where a marginal

note comprises a whole sentence or sentences, I have natural-

ly capitalized th e first word.)

The difficulties for the Hegel translator are further com-

pounded in a work such as this which was never intended for

publication. As a text, these 1805-6 lectures are incomplete:

only in being read by Professor Hegel, in the lecture hall,

would its jotted hints become voiced thoughts. Thus, even

with bracketed additions and introductory essays, this incom-

pleteness is a problem which the translator can at best only

partially overcome.

A further problem stems from the difference between Ger-

man and English as philosophical languages: the tendency, in

German, is to let one word mean as many things as possible,

while the tendency in English is (ideally) to use words which

have no more than one meaning or which will stand for no

more than one meaning throughout a given context. Thus

the German tendency is to be explosively connotative, and

this has unquestionably conditioned German philosophical

thinking up to the present day. This cultural difference

makes philosophy originally expressed in German often ap-

pear ambiguous in Englishunless, that is, the translator

adopts and indicates different meanings for the same word,

as the context dictates. But even this endeavor can prove

frustrating to the translator, who must try to fix a meaning

for a word which Hegel uses loosely.

The three most notorious instances of this ambiguity in

language are, in my opinion, Geist, Entdusserung, and Auf-

hebung. The first of these is used not only in the context of

individual "mind/

7

but also in that of the political and cul-

tural self-awareness on the part of a community, as well as

13


7/96

f t s f

the very mysterious "spirit" which moves world history.

Since Hegel uses the one word Geist, for these three very

different meanings, what we as readers must do is both to

isolate these meanings from each other and find a common

meaning for all three which would enable us to use the one

term. (This, it seems to me, is the key to understanding He-

gel.) In the same way, Entdusserungmeans, for Hegel, "exter-

nalization" and "alienation/' each with a positive as well as

negative connotation. In order to convey the meanings of that

term, I have used one word or the other, sometimes both in

tandem. It is obvious that Hegel is in many places exploiting

the ambiguity of these words.Aufhebung, too, has positive as

well as negative connotations, and quite often Hegel intends

both in the one word. Thus it means (at the minimum) "tran-

scendence," "overcoming," "elevation," and "retention," as

well as "cancellation," "negation," "annulment," "dissolu-

tion," "abrogation," "termination," "suspension," "suppres-

sion," "sublation," "removal," and "repeal." Here, too, I have

chosen the word (or two) which I believe best conveys the

meaning. Another somewhat less problematic term is

A n-

schauung. Despite its variegated meanings, the standard En-

glish rendering is "intuition." I have stayed with that where

possible, but have not hesitated to use other renderings where

the context would have made "intuition" awkward. (After all,

Weltanschauung is "world view," not "world intuition.") In

the questionable cases, I have added the German term in pa-

rentheses in order to alert the reader.

I could go on, to complain (as a translator) of other words

Hegel used, and of the way he used thembut that would be

unmannerly on my part, when the host is so gracious and the

feast so rich.

14

INTRODUCTION

On Hegel 's Concept

of Spirit

The Jena lectures are an attemp t at presenting a

comprehensive world-system. Any such system m ust include

(and reconcile) two seemingly opposed aspects: the world of

physical nature and the world of mind. One is extended in

space, the other in time. One is determined by physical forces

and laws, the other is supposedly free. There are numerous

ways of distinguishing between the two sorts of things which

make up the cosmic inventory. And the more sharply we

draw the distinction, the more pointedly the question may be

asked: how can one universe include both sorts of things?

It is easy enough to polarize the distinctionsalmost any-

one can be a dualist. The deeper challenge, however, is to

emphasize the distinctions and then to resolve them, to start

as a dualist and then to arrive at a monistic and all-inclusive

view of the world without, however, blurring the differences.

On the other hand, it is equally easy to be a monist, to say

that everything in the world is only one kind of entity (mate-

rial particles, say, or sense impressions). This, however, leads

to simplification and reduction: spatial entities such as tables

and chairs are undeniably different from mental entities such

as thoughts and desires. How, then, are we to conceive of a

world that can include them both, with their differences?

The profound achievement of Hegel is that he is neither a

dualist nor a monist; he regards both these outlooks as merely

partial truths, and, therefore, as partial falsehoods as well.

Whenever Hegel considers one of the traditional dichot-

15


8/96

Hegel

and the

Human Spirit

omiesmind/body, subject/object, being/becoming, univer-

sal/particular, infinite/finitehe regards it not as offering a

choice between alternative viewpoints,

but

rather

as a

polar-

ity which must

be

resolved.

The

truth

in its

totality does

not

restat the levelofdivision,and such division must therefore

be overcomein favorof thehigher, comprehensive truth.The

clue

to

resolving

the

various divisions, Hegel believes, lies

in

the human effort

to

arrive

at

such comprehensive truth,

or,

more precisely, lies

in our

awareness

of

that effort.

The hu-

man consciousness, becauseit"includes"alldichotomies,ab-

sorbs them intoitself, isthustheultimate unityof all differ-

ences. Indeed,

it is the

very essence

of

consciousness,

as

Hegel

sees

it, to be the

absolute unity

of

opposites.

(The

more funda-

mental duality,

the

choice between dualisms

as

against

mo-

nisms,is as old as philosophy itself.)

The Jena lectures of 1805-6 comprise an internal duality

themselves, since there

is a

section

on the

philosophy

of Na-

ture

and

another

on the

philosophy

of

Spirit.

The

former

in-

cludes topics such

as

mechanics, chemistry,

and

physics,

which arediscussedin a waythat is rather abstruseand the

entire sectionis by now well out-of-date.Thesectionon the

philosophy

of

Spirit,

on the

other hand,

has

much

to say to us

today,

and

offers discussions

on the

topics

of

intellect, will,

recognition, alienation, property,law,crimeandpunishment,

social classes,and thetheoryof culture.

In

his

Encyclopaedia

of the

Philosophical Sciences(1817),

Hegel divides

the

philosophy

of

Spirit into three sections:

Subjective Spirit (which concerns

the

psychological aspect),

Objective Spirit (concerning

the

political

and

social),

and Ab-

solute Spirit (art, religion, philosophy). This arrangement is

approximated

in the

Jena lectures,

the

difference being

in the

main headings

and how

they subdivide; also,

the

area

of ob-

jective spiritishere given greater weight thantheothertwo.

What Hegel wants

to

show

is the

continuity

of the

human

spirit, from

the

level

of the

individual psyche

to

that

of the

transcultural. From

the

level

of the

individual intellect

to

that

of culture and beyond, there is one Geist which breathes

throughall.

16

Introduction

P A R T I. Spirit According tcrlts Concept

A .

Intelligence.

In

undertaking

to

discuss-*the areas

of

intel-

lect

and

will,

as two

components

of the

subjective human

spirit, Hegel

is

addressing himself

to

another

of the

well-

known dichotomies

in the

tradition

of

philosophy. Intellect

and will have traditionally been seen

as two

functions

op-

posed

to one

another,-

and if any

dichotomy ever needed

re-

solving, this

one

does. Indeed

it is

along these lines that

the

psyche itself

is

divided against

itself.

Yet intellect

and

will have certain aspects

in

common,

as

functions of the psyche. First, there is their indeterminacy,

since

no

external force

can

dictate what their content will

be.

Second, thereis the characteristicway the intellectand the

will point beyond themselves

to a

specific conte nt.

And

third,

they haveadimensionof universality, whereby their content

is broadened into

the

"types" which

the

intellect uses

in its

thinking, and in the caseof the will, into the "ideals"and

"ends" which

the

will sets

for itself.

Yet

the

differences b etween t hem

are

just

as

great. First,

the

standards involved

in the use of

the intellect (e.g., consistency)

arenot thoseof thewill (e.g., assertiveness). Second,theintel-

lect's affirmation doesnotnecessarily leadto action,asdoes

the affirmation

on the

part

of the

will. Third,

we

usually

de-

ploy

the two

functions

in

opposite directionsthe theoretical

against

the

practical,

the

vita contemplativa against

the

vita

activa. This listof similaritiesanddifferencescanbe extended

at length.

As

was

said earlier,

for

Hegel

it is the

essence

of

conscious-

nessto be theunity ofopposites. This unity requires eachof

two opposed elements

to be

identical

to the

totality.

Yet

this

seems self-contradictory,

for how can two

opposed things

be

identical to the same thing? In regard to intellect and will,

however,

the

contradiction

is

only

a

seeming

one,

since

it is

altogether transcendedin theunifying consciousness.

We

can now see,

more generally,

one of the

ways

by

which

Hegel arrives at the unification of dualities, whatever they

might

be. He

will take

one

term, such

as

G^ist"conscious-

17


9/96

Hegel

and the

Human Spirit

ness,"

"mind," "spirit"and apply

it to

both sides

of an

oppo-

sition.

The

opposed e ntities the n become mere aspects

of

that

unifying termand since that term

is of

broader scope than

either

of the

polar terms,

we

would

be

wrong (methodologi-

cally)

to

ascribe

an

independent reality

to

either

of the

poles.

They

are

therefore annulled , transcendedaufgehobenpre-

served within

the

unifying term

and at the

same time negated

by

it.

One problematic feature (among many)

in

this approach

is

that

the

unifying term Hegel uses will most likely already

exist in ordinary language, and thus will carryits connota-

tions with it intoitsphilosophicaluse. Thetermisextended

beyond its ordinary connotations by being givena technical

(i.e., philosophical) meaningand thenwe mayexpecta se-

ries of clashes between the various meanings. Althoughthe

German word Geist mayadmitof such technical extension,

the English words "consciousness," "mind,"

and

"spirit"

do

so only with difficultyso that, inordinary English,we gen-

erally speakof a cultural "spirit"or acollective "mind" only

with inverted commas added.

Yet

one

reason

why we

cannot rest satisfied with ordinary

language

is

that

it is

much

too

restricted

by

finitude

and par-

ticularity. What marks intelligence,

on the

other hand,

is its

element

of

universality. Thus intelligence steps back from

the

particularity

of a

thing

to see it in its

generic,

or

universal,

light

(the way the

thing conforms

to a

type,

and soon).Yet in

ordinary perception,

and in the

language associated with

it,

we

are

immersed

in the

particularity

of

objects.

In

stepping

back from that particularity,

we

step into

an

awareness

of

ourselves,

and in so

doing

the

intelligence becomes pure

sub-

ject, entirely

for

itself"in contrast

to the

object, which

is

"in

itself. For

Hegel, then,

air

knowledge

is

problematic,

since

it

involves contrasting elementse.g.,

the

subjective

and the objective, the universal and the particularwhich

must clash, at least implicitly. When the clash is madeex-

plicit,as aconflict orevenacontradiction,it can beresolved

(aswas said earlier)by themindin its awarenessof its own

activity in positing these elements. Accordingly, all knowl-

18

Introduction

edge leads implicitly

to

self-kntfwledge. That implicit trajec-

tory, made explicit, becomes

the

dialectic

of

knowledge.

Now that

we

have seen

how

consciousness

is

beset

by in-

ner oppositions,

and

even contradictions (which

it is

supposed

to reconcile),

we can

well expect

the

concept

of

sei/-knowl-

edge

(as

consciousness

of

consciousness)

to be

even more

self-

contradictory. Indeed,

the

concept

of

self-knowledge

is one of

the most problematic

and

important ones

in

Hegel's philoso-

phy. Usually, when

I

know something,

I

objectify

it as

there,

as "other" thanmyself. How,then,can"knowing"beapplied

to the self, when the knowing subject is the object known?

Hegel'sway out of this difficulty, here,is tosay'that what^the

intelligence graspsis notitselfbut its act.

Above all, in this unity of subject and object in self-

knowlege, intelligence is in and for itself. In thisway the

dichotomy between knowerandknownisovercome. WhenI

am immersed

in

experiencing

the

ordinary world

of

objects,

the selfis anobject in itself as all other objectsare. But in

knowing itself, the self is both in itself and for itself

self-enclosed

andyet

open

to itself.

Here, then,

we

have

a

concrete example

of how

Hegel uses

the

concept

of

human

consciousness

to

overcome

one of the

traditional dichoto-

mies .In my

self-consciousness,

I

have

my own in itself as

my object:

I am

separated from

it, and yet I am at one

with

it.

In this

we see the

autonomy

of

consciousness,

its

freedom

from

all

external determination

in the

power

to

relate

to, or

negate,

any and

every thing th at

is the

object

of

consciousness.

Hegel speaks

of the

self

and

consciousness

as an All-

Encompassing Night,

in

which anything, everything,

or

noth-

ing

can

occur. Thus

the

self is negativity, a frightening vacuity,

for

it is

totally arbitrary

in its

freedom, free

to

call forth im ages

or

to

ignore them,

to

connect

or to

dismember them.

To

"mean" (meinen)

is to

"make mine"

{mein).

In

being reminded

of something,Igiveit themeaningofbeing-for-me.hiremind-

ing myself [eiinnein],I re-internalize [innere],and I thereby

re-entermyself.

Inall this, Hegel revealsthe roleof theselfand the im-

plicit awareness

of

oneself:in

all

awareness

as

such. Knowl-

19


10/96

Hegeland the Human Spirit

edge already involves

a

synthesis

of

content

and

selfwhich

is

why

sei/-knowledge

is

always

in the

wings

and

ready

to

make its appearance. Thus a thing is never simply there;

rather, with the constant proximity of selfhood, with our

awarenessof the selfin irscreationof the thing,we seethat

the thing

is not

what

it is ( das

Ding

ist

nicht

was es

i st

;/

),

since instead

of

simply being there,

it is

being-for-me.

The

thing's being

is

bound

up

with

the self, its

beingis

the

self

("sein Sein

ist Ich

selbst

;;

):

the

object

is

subject.

The

transi-

tion is easy, then, from thisto the self-knowledge in which

the subject isobject.

Yet Hegel cannot remain withtheIdealism w hich says that

the thingis notwhatit is, but israther madeup of oursense

perceptions. This view

is

only

the

first step toward truth,

a

step

we

must

go

beyond.

The

next step

is to

turn further

inward

to the self, to an

understanding

of its

activity,

and

then from there

to

turn

to the

outer world again. This move-

mentis areturntobeingbut only afterwehave fully under-

stood the human faculty bywhich wegive namesto things

thatare there.

The free self givesaname to ameaning,and assigns that

name

to the

thingas

the

essence

of the

thingeven though

the thing itself

is

altogether different from

the

noun. This

name-giving

is

therefore

a

negative function.

Yet by

means of

that function

the

thing

is

objectified,

is

seen

as

being outside

th eego.Hegel poin tsout that thisis themost basic creativity

exercisedby themind, and this creativityis in a wayrecog-

nized in Genesis, where Adam's assigned task is to give

names

to

things.

To

name

is the

sovereign right

of

spirit,

Hegel says,

our way of

creating

all

nature, possessing

it as our

own, stamping

it

with

our

spirit.

The

lion becomes

a

thing

that

is

named "lion." Nature

is

thereby made spiritual;

the

object's being

is

thereby

our own.

Hegel rejects the Empiricist philosophy which generally

seesus as existing in apassive relationto theworld: things

impinge on us (we are the

tabula rasa)

and thus we have

images

of

them,

or

rather

we

experience

our

experience

of

them,

but not the

things themse lves. Hegel asserts that rather

20

Introduction

than

a

realm

of.

images,

the

wttfld

is a

realm

of

names,

of

meanings bestowed. That subjective bestowal

is

externalized:

the nameis not merelyone for me ;uather^it becomesthe

thing

as itis,

this

isa

lion. Thus

the

puzzles raised

by

Empiri-

cism (e.g.,thetreein theforestand theproblemofsolipsism)

are spurious because they emanate from this false picture

of

our passivity.

Our

real relation

to the

world

is

entirely active.

In naming,

we

overcome

the

particularity

of

experience.

Thus in addition to man's name-giving capacity, he has a

capacity

to

rise above particularity, above

the

immediate,

to

universalityandthought.Theproper name becomesageneric

name,

and we see the

object

in a new

light.

In

rising

to

that

level, however, we alsosee ourselvesin a new light, as as-

signers

of

names

and

meaningsas

ego.

Hegel

is

well aware

of

the

difference betw een

the

volatile

ego and the

determinate

world to which the ego relates.How can that fluid entity

(within)

be the

basis

of all

that

is out

there

and

fixed?

The

answer is that the ego comes to its own fixity in its self-

awarenessthe awareness

of

itself

as

activity,

as

"labor":

it

sees

itself, at

this point,

in its

expressions

and

creationsin

artifacts, language, social relationsbut above all it sees

itself.

The constitution of the ego itself is this very processof

self-relation, self-mediation. "Labor"

(in the

.broad sense

noted above)

is the

externalization

of the

ego

in an

object.

But

th e

ego

also returns

to itself, as we saw. And it is

precisely

this return whichis the basisof its transcendent properties

ancTcapacities,its universalityand necessity.

As name-giver,

the ego

preserves every thing

in its

"night,"

and

in

hegel, g.w.f. - the jena lectures on the philosophy of spirit (18o5-6).pdf

Documents