SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY A Study on Hegel's Encyclopedia P h ilo s o p h y o f Sub je c tiv e Sp irit (1830) Heikki Ikäheimo 44444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 PUBLICATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ University of Jyväskylä Publications in Philosophy, 67 2000 Printed at Jyväskylä University Printing House, Jyväskylä 2000 Copyright © Heikki Ikäheimo ISBN 951-39-0890-9 ISSN 1455-9471 Distributor: Kampus Kirja Kauppakatu 9, FIN-40100 Jyväskylä, Finland tel. +358-14-2603157 fax. +358-14-611143 email: kirjamyynti@kampusdata.fi SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY A Study on Hegel's Encyclopedia Philosophy of Subjective Spirit (1830) Heikki Ikäheimo Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1. On the architectonics of the Philosophy of subjective spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2. Singular consciousness of the world: self-consciousness1 . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.1. 'Sensuous consciousness' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.2. 'Desire' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3. 'Objekt' versus 'Gegenstand' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4. Desire and recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 4.1.Socially mediated consciousness of the world: self-consciousness2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 5. Universal consciousness of the world: self-consciousness3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 6. Consciousness of oneself as object and subject among others: self-consciousness4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Appendix: contents of the Encyclopedia Philosophy of Subjective spirit (1830) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 1 Preface Man kann den Ausdruck Selbstdenken häufig hören, a l s ob damit e twas Bedeutendes gesagt w äre. In der tat kan n keiner für den anderen denken , so wenig als essen un d t r i n k e n ; j e n e r A u s d ruck i s t d a h e r e in Pleonasmus. Hegel I believe many people share my experience that writing about a theme is the most efficient way to learn about that theme. It is also a very efficient way to organize one's own thoughts. At least in the case of philosophy these two learning processes are not separate: one does not really 'know' a theme unless one is able to think it in an organized fashion oneself. To me, interpreting Hegel's views on systematical philosophical themes have in this sense proved to be an enormously fruitful method for developing my own thinking. In this case, a lot came to me only during the quite rapid process of writing this text and a clearer formulation of many ideas presented in it is yet to come. This text has done its job if it succeeds in being interesting and provocative enough to arouse discussion and comments on issues that are still far from being settled in the literature. About the text. In translating Hegel into English I have consulted Petry's bilingual edition (see literature), but mostly used my own deliberation for producing translations that are good enough for my purposes. Translating always involves making compromises and one just has try to find the best one for each purpose. I have usually reproduced Hegel's original in the footnotes so that the reader does not have to rely only on the translations even if she does not happen to have a copy of Hegel's text at hand. I have also usually quoted more than just those sentences that I explicitly analyze since quoting off the context is the way to produce hasty interpretations that do not help anyone. Hegel's texts have this feature in common with the Bible: you can probably find support for any view from it by quoting haphazardly from a suitable place and disregarding the context. (By this I do not however want to suggest any other similarities as to the approach to be taken towards Hegel's texts and the Bible.) PREFACE 2 To help those who do not know the Encyclopedia Philosophy of subjective spirit, and also those (for example myself) who know something about it but find immensely hard even to remember its table of contents, I have reproduced the table of contents in the end of my text as an appendix. In my text I use three different terms of the parts of Hegel's text. They are: section (or main-section), subsection and chapter. Thus the text of the Philosophy of subjective spirit contains three sections: 'Anthropology', 'Phenomenology' and 'Psychology'. For example the 'Phenomenology'-section contains then three subsections: 'Consciousness as such', 'Self-consciousness' and 'Reason'. Finally, for example 'Consciousness as such'-subsection contains three chapters: 'Sensuous consciousness', 'Perception' and 'Understanding'. My thanks are due to all those who have provided me with support and encouragement in my work so far. Some of those to whom I owe a special gratitude I would like to mention here. -Without Susanna Hartikainen I would never have even thought of studying philosophy. Even though there are easier ways to get on with life than studying and practizing philosophy, it seems to be the right one for me. -Jussi Kotkavirta has been my teacher and wise friend from the very beginning of my studies, from whom I have probably learned most of what I understand of philosophy. -Arto Laitinen is the other one who has been alongside me almost from the beginning of my studies. Without Arto's enthusiasm and eagerness for discussions it would have been very hard or impossible to remain motivated with studying philosophy which often can be quite a lonely job. Arto has also been an enormous help by reading this texts almost simultaneously as I wrote it. He was wise enough to propose only those kind of corrections and clarifications that were possible in what ever time there was and to abstain form pointing out the overall unfinishedness of some of my formulations, of which I'm well aware anyhow. -Risto Niemi-Pynttäri has been an important figure for me for many years, first as an inspiring teacher and later as a dear friend and colleague. Risto's passion for life and thinking makes being and discussing with him always an exceptional pleasure. -Professor Eerik Lagerspetz has been unfailingly supportive during the time that I have worked at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy and has produced an atmosphere where one does not have to feel ashamed of spending a lot of time on a subject that is certainly not among the most fashionable ones in the Finnish context. -Professor Manfred Frank originally encouraged me to take up the theme that I deal with in this text. My disagreements with him on the field of Hegel-interpretation PREFACE 3 are insignificant compared to what I have learned by reading his writings and especially in intensive discussions with him during his visit to Jyväskylä in August 1999. I hope to be able to develop the themes of reflection in the near future further than what I managed to do in this text. -Contacts to Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster are too important for me to account for adequately. I have learned enormously in Michael Quante's and Christoph Halbig's seminars on Hegel, McDowell and related issues. I am moreover especially grateful to Christoph Halbig for his generous comments on my work. -Without professor Olli Koistinen and the Finnish academy it would have been much harder to concentrate on the work that has been necessary for these first attempts to analyze the themes of selfconsciousness and inter-subjectivity in Hegel's Encyclopedia. -Finally, without Anne I would not have achieved anything. 1 This text is a slightly amended version of a licenciate-thesis which was successfully defended 19.10. 2000 at the Faculty of Social Sc iences, University of Jyväskylä. 4 Introduction1 This is a study on self-consciousness and intersubjectivity in Hegel's late encyclopedia philosophy of spirit from 1830. It is motivated by serious disagreement or even confusion in the secondary literature about the role or function of intersubjectivity in the constitution of a fully developed individual human subjectivity according to late Hegel. My claim is, that the sometimes bewildering differences in reading Hegel on this particular issue are based mostly on lack of adequate attention to what Hegel in fact says in his mature philosophy of subjective spirit. We nowadays have an extensive literature on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit from 1807, and a lot of this literature deals extensively with questions of intersubjectivity and recognition in the constitution of subjectivity. However, the text which would seem to be the most obvious place to look for Hegel's account of the constitution of human subjectivity – that is, his philosophy of subjective spirit – is still comparatively rarely read and commented on. The number of monographs dedicated specifically to the mature philosophy of subjective spirit can still be counted with one's fingers. Certainly one influential cause for this is the overall anti-metaphysical climate in contemporary philosophy and the conviction that Hegel's Encyclopedia for sure represents the kind of metaphysical philosophizing that anyone who wants to be taken as a responsible thinker should be hostile to. This anti-metaphysical attitude finds nowadays its support not only in Anglo-American philosophy but also in Germany, among influential thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. It is however to be expected (and I would add, to be hoped for) that certain motives and developments in the philosophical arena will open new ears also to the philosophically more ambitious side of Hegel represented by his mature system – a side which I do not think should be characterized, as it still often is, as a kind of hyper-rationalistic and hyper-metaphysical attempt to grasp the world with pure thinking that is insensitive to sciences and common sense. It should be seen as a much more down to earth attempt to construct adequate conceptual means for grasping highly varied phenomena of the natural, cultural, mental and logical world as an interconnected whole, as an attempt that is perhaps most illustrative to characterize as modern Aristotelianism. By Aristotelianism I do not mean any specific INTRODUCTION 2 This is not to say that there a re no imp ortant similaritie s in Aristo tle's and H egel's 'results'. For Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle, see Weiss 1969, Greene 1979 and Chiereghin 1991. Chieregh in's article contains a short bibliography of relevant literature (Chiereghin 1991, p. 19, foo tnote 30). 5 doctrines proposed by Aristotle but more generally a certain attitude in philosophy towards phenomena that are the topic of philosophy, that is 'saving the phenomena' in not trying to reduce them to some fundamental level or ground wherefrom they would be deduced by some logically pure procedure that is more or less independent from the phenomena themselves. Thus, when Hegel praises Aristotle's books on the soul and treatises on its aspects and conditions as being "still by far the best or even sole work of speculative interest on this general topic" (§ 378), I take the object of his appreciation to be at least as much the general non-reductive and synthetic approach of Aristotle towards what Hegel calls the subjective spirit (or the aspect of it that Hegel calls the soul (Seele)) as the contents of what Aristotle says.2 It is in this spirit, that I think Hegel should be also read: as a thinker who did his best in trying to synthesize the most developed and promising scientific knowledge of his time and the most unbiased experience of common sense in a picture of human being that would not reduce any aspect of it to an illusion or mere effects of some underlying but non-appearing 'ground'. Against this, many will protest by insisting that it is after all Hegel's metaphysical logic that works as the final criterion in Hegel's presentation when it comes to the question of what is true and false in empirical sciences or common sense. In the end, isn't Hegel the panlogist for whom phenomena are only a surface play of an eternal logical order, the structure of which Hegel claims to have grasped in a purely a priori manner? The best way to reduce these worries is to produce interpretations and analyzes of Hegel's Realphilosophie, that reveal its richness and relevance to general philosophical discussions of the past and present. What ever one finds out by reading the Realphilosophie, at least one should be able to see quite easily that it is so thoroughly permeated by analyzes of the most varied kind of phenomena, and so thoroughly informed by the scientific and philosophical discussions of Hegel's day that attempts to track it all back to Hegel's logic will at their best remain on an extremely high level of generality and abstractness. In this spirit, Michael John Petry defends a strongly down to earth reading of Hegel's Realphilosophie in the introduction to his translation of INTRODUCTION 6 the philosophy of subjective spirit by emphasizing the level of detailedness and openness to sciences and common sense of Hegel's exposition. He also emphasizes "the process of constant revision and rethinking" (Petry I, xcvii) that went on in Hegel's lectures on subjective spirit during the twenties. Petry's extensive comments on the sources from where Hegel draw his details (in the endnotes of Petry's edition) are an impressive testimony of how far from a purely logical deduction Hegel's way of proceeding really is. There is no doubt that Hegel had higher hopes than most philosophers today on the possibilities of philosophy to organize and synthesize the scattered and confused mass of scientific and everyday experience into an ordered whole. But it is also probably true that no one (except perhaps Aristotle) has made a more serious effort in trying to make it actually work – and that means not just simplifying everything to simple formulas, but really doing justice to the plurality and complexity of reality with a conceptual apparatus that is adequate to it (that this apparatus itself would turn out to be extremely complicated should become as no surprise to anyone). And when one witnesses the way Hegel uses or 'applies' the conceptual apparatus developed in his logic in his Realphilosophie, one soon realizes that what is going on is at least as much patient handwork with the infinite complexity of phenomena as it is an attempt to make reality fit some purely logical structure. In the end, my thesis is not that the role of Hegel's logic in his Realphilosophie – and in this case in the philosophy of subjective spirit – should be simply ignored, and certainly not that it has no role in it. The point is, that if Hegel really is right in saying that the conceptual structures analyzed in his logic are those instantiated in reality and our thinking, then we should be able to operate with them more or less naturally by simply analyzing phenomena. There is thus no separate 'method' of logic forced on the phenomena in Hegel's theory, the acceptance of which is a precondition for us accepting what is being said in his Realphilosophie. This is Aristotelianism again: there is no transcendent realm of logical structures or essences, but only a structured world. Now, what do I mean by the strands in the philosophical arena that I expect to open new ears to Hegel? First of all, the increasing interest in Aristotle or an Aristotelian approach in contemporary philosophy of mind. The general atmosphere for example among many of the writers who have INTRODUCTION 3 Nussbaum/Rorty (ed.) 1992. 4 See the in this respect illuminating attempt by Samuel Guttenp lan to organize a 'map of mind' out of a l ist of various phenomena his students (before studying any philosophy of mind) have answered to be proof for the presence of 'minds' when asked (Guttenp lan 1995). For K.V. Wilkes the whole category of the 'mental' seems be an unhappy invention since it necessitates the artificial classification of the functions of a perso n to eith er menta l or non-m ental. Acc ording to her the way in w hich Descartes was forced to dec ide between these categories and ended up for example in classifying the two functions of 'seeing' and 'walking' – which in Aristotle's account are closely interlocking – as 'mental' and 'physical' respectively, is illustrative of the artificiality and unfruitfulness of mentalism (see Wilkes 1992 in Nussbaum and Rorty (ed.) 1992.) Th e Aristotelian interlocking of broadly speaking 'theoretical' and 'practical' functions or worldand self-relations is a high ly characteristic f eature of also Hege l's philosophy of subjective sp irit, as I intend to show in this work. 5 DeVries 1988, pp. 201-202. One could ask, whether positivism, reductionism or eliminativism really is already a thing of the past in contemporary philosophy of mind. Also to me it seem s that especially the lac k of attention to intersubjectivity in DeVries's in many ways f ine book still leaves open the question whether there is still someth ing to learn from Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit. 7 contributed to a recent collection of articles on Aristotle's De Anima3 seems to be a dissatisfaction with a broadly speaking 'mentalistic' frame of questioning and arguing in philosophy of mind. It is a frustration to the unfruitfulness of trying to stick with a strict dualism between two categories, 'the mental' and 'the physical' and the never-ending puzzlement on what is the relation of the mysterious category of the mental to the supposedly unmysterious category of the physical. After all, in trying to grasp the being of the incredibly complex entity each of us is we inevitably come across phenomena that are impossible to locate without reduction or simplification into one or the other side of the dualism.4 The spirit in many or most of the articles could almost be caught by Hegel's praise of the merits of Aristotle in the passage I quoted earlier. Aristotle's books on the soul give a refreshingly different picture of human being, less dualist, less prone to reduction – in one word, less dogmatic – than the mentalist one. I do not try to pass a final judgement of whether Willem DeVries was right in writing 1988 that it is in fact because: Hege l's own primary inspiration in philosophical psychology, Aristotle provided so much of the inspiration to those w ho battled positivism within the A ngloAmerican tradition [...] [that] Hegel has littl e new to offe r us because [...] we have finally caught him up".5 I do however have the feeling that if Aristotle provides a constant inspiration for the reasons just stated, then Hegel surely should also. Most of the INTRODUCTION 6 McDowell 1996. 7 Halbig 1999. See also Quante 1999. 8 Halbig does no t content him self with simply exh ib i t ing Hegel's work fro m (cont inued...) 8 motives that give good reasons to be inspired by Aristotle's De Anima are also good reasons to be interested in Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit. Compared to Aristotle Hegel of course also has the advantage of having lived after Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant, and thus having been thoroughly acquainted with the general modern tendencies of philosophy, part of which mentalism is. And further, it is not only the ontological dualism between the mental and the physical, but also the epistemological problematics of subjectivity and objectivity, starting from Descartes and the empirists and permeating the post-kantian German idealism, that forms the background for Hegel's philosophizing and sets a large part of his agenda. Thus his philosophy is much more informed by the specifically modern ontological and epistemological dualisms than Aristotle's ever could be. Secondly, John McDowell's attempt to clear new ground for common sense realism in epistemology in his Mind and World6 and his explicit, although fragmentary references to Hegel as a paragon have already drawn considerable attention from Hegelian circles and explicit comparisons between McDowell and Hegel have already been made for example by scholars in University of Münster. Christoph Halbig's recent Dissertation7 is an outstanding study of Hegel's epistemology and philosophy of mind from a McDowellian perspective. Although Halbig's work in not limited in showing similarities in McDowell's and Hegel's approaches, one of his premises is that McDowell's attempt to find a middle path between the problems of, on the one hand the naturalistic 'myth of the given' and on the other hand the impasse of the coherentist 'frictionless spinning in a void', that is, to construe a picture of the subjects epistemic openness to the world where the world itself imposes a normative restriction to the subject beliefs, is a fruitful perspective also for understanding Hegel's epistemology in his mature Encyclopedia. According to Halbig also for Hegel the world is directly given as conceptually structured in the subjects intuition and thus it is able to operate as the decisive instance in determining the truth and falsity of beliefs about it. I find this kind of work of vital importance in reintroducing Hegel in the central international discussions of the philosophy today8 and my modest hope is to contribute to it INTRODUCTION 8 (...continued) contempo rary points of view, but also goes quite far in showing its contemporary relevance and also in doing important groundwork by analyzing Hegel 's theory of truth and Hegel's views on issues concerning the possible modularity of mind. 9 Honneth 1995. 9 by going somewhat further on issues that are not extensively treated in Halbig's study. These are thus examples of strands and discussions in contemporary philosophy where there seem to be prospects for rehabilitation of a part of Hegel's philosophy that has traditionally found little response, that is, his philosophy of subjective spirit as part of the encyclopedic system. It is to be hoped for, that increasing acquaintance with this part of Hegel's work will also change the attitudes and interest from largely external discussions and worries about his dubious metaphysics to unprejudiced communication with his texts. It might turn out that the philosophy of subjective spirit still contains a considerable amount of unused, and to a large extent poorly known, potential. But back to intersubjectivity. What has to be said at least is that there are wildly different interpretations of the role of intersubjectivity in Hegel's writings, and especially those of his later period. In his book The Struggle for Recognition; The Moral and Political Grammar of Social Conflicts9 Axel Honneth uses Hegel's concept of recognition for constructing what he calls "a formal conception of ethical life". His aspiration is to account for the necessary conditions of a fully developed practical identity (or self-relation) that enables the individual to fully realize herself in the world in harmony with others. These conditions are forms of recognition for the individuality, autonomy and particular traits and achievements of the individual, that are realized in primary relationships, legal relations and communities of solidarity respectively. These conditions for full individual flourishing are to function as normative criteria for societies. Honneth's claim is that these forms of recognition are usefully analyzed by Hegel in his Jena lectures and texts dated before the Phenomenology of Spirit from 1807, although Hegel's ideas need to be 'naturalized' by supporting them with findings in modern social-psychology, sociology, political science and studies in the suppression of individual and cultural identities. Honneth's book is an interesting and fruitful gambit and has its undeniable merits, but what interests me here, is the picture of Hegel's development it draws. Namely, according to Honneth all the interesting insights about intersubjectivity and recognition INTRODUCTION 10 Ibidem, p. 61. 11 Habermas 1999, p. 149. 10 Hegel had still in his earlier Jena-period are lost when Hegel starts to develop a system of a "monologically self-developing spirit"10 starting from the Jena Phenomenology of Spirit. In the Phenomenology of Spirit recognition is reduced to a subordinate episode of the lordship and bondage in the formation-process of this spirit . For Honneth this downfall in intersubjectivity has fatal consequences for Hegel's later account of social institutions in his philosophy of objective spirit. Honneth does not make any explicit claims about Hegel's later philosophy of subjective spirit in the Encyclopedia philosophy of subjective spirit, but from Honneth's premises it is hard to imagine that there either we would find anything of interest concerning intersubjectivity. In this rough picture of Hegel's development Honneth is largely in agreement with Jürgen Habermas. Recently Habermas stated about Hegel: The media of language, work and mutual recognition, which once testified to an antimentalist turn [made by Hegel (H.I.)] either entirely disappear within th e development of the system, or assume a modest role. Language is assimilated to the expressivist model of a body which makes man ifest psychological impulses. [.. .] Labour and the tool disappear entirely from a 'phenomeno logy of spirit ' which is reduced to a subdivision of the chapter on 'Subjective Spirit' (Encyclopedia, §§ 413-39). [...] It is true that the struggle for recognition appears in the Encyclopedia at the appropriate place. But the intersubjectivist structure of reciprocal recognition is no longer relevant for the mentalistic account of self and self-reflection, given that in the Logic Hegel unfolds the concept in accordance with the model of the 'ego', or of pure self-consciousness. Intersubjectivity is repressed from subjectivity, leaving no presence in the presentation of the absolute idea.11 Whereas Habermas also finds the early Hegel as an ally in his own attempts to overcome the subjectivist or 'mentalist' trend in modern philosophy by focusing on the intersubjective structures of symbolic interaction of language and work, for him Hegel's intersubjectivism is fatally harmed by the tendency in his later philosophy of subordinating all the topics of Realphilosophie to an absolutist conception of the 'pure' or 'absolute self-consciousness' unfolded in the logic. This downfall of intersubjective constitution of the objective social world reflects – so Habermas – Hegel's wish to dam the revolutionary tendencies of his day with an absolutist conception of a structure of state institutions, the authority of which is warranted by the INTRODUCTION 12 See idem. 13 Hösle 1987. 14 Ibidem., p. 370. 15 Ibidem., p. 379. 16 Frank 1991. 11 eternal logical structure of the absolute subject and not by changing and unstable forms of intersubjective judgements of their validity.12 Habermas's and Honneth's interest is certainly not primarily in Hegelexegetics and their work does not include any detailed study on Hegel's encyclopedia philosophy of subjective spirit. However, also Vittorio Hösle in his extensive two volume analysis of Hegel's system13 shares the general judgement about the repression of intersubjectivity in Hegel's Encyclopedia. First of all Hösle thinks that intersubjectivity in all plays a minor role in the argument of the philosophy of subjective spirit. : [die] philosophische Thematisierung der Intersubjektivität in Hegels System keine zentrale Stellung beansprucht [...] [weil sie] hinter der Bestimmung der genauen Relation von Subjektivität und Objektivität an Bedeutung weit zurückbleibt.14 What is more important, Hösle claims that even if Hegel would have decided to say more about intersubjective relations in the Encyclopedia, he would have failed since his philosophy of subjective spirit lacks the conceptual means of grasping intersubjectivity adequately because of "die grundsätzliche Grenze seiner Philosophie – sein Unvermögen, kategorial Subjekt-Subjekt-Relationen von Subjekt-Objekt-Relationen zu unterscheiden"15. Thus also Hösle finds a serious intersubjective deficit in Hegel's late work, however not only because of the suspicious almighty absolute but also because Hegel cannot really grasp the intersubjective or subjectsubject-relation adequately. But there are very different points of view too. Manfred Frank holds almost the opposite position in his judgement about intersubjectivity in Hegel. In an article where he deals extensively with Habermas's project of overcoming the – for Habermas politically suspect – monological or solipsist tendencies of modern subject-centered philosophy of consciousness (Bewusstseinsphilosophie) with a comprehensive intersubjective paradigm, Frank in fact reads Hegel as the forefather of Habermas's alleged paradigmshift.16 -And not only Hegel of the Jena period, but also Hegel in his Phenomenology of Spirit and the late Encyclopedia philosophy of subjective spirit. Broadly paraphrased, according to Frank Habermas does not succeed in his attempt to exorcize all traces of what Habermas takes to be INTRODUCTION 17 The classic one is 'Fichtes ursprüngliche Einsicht' (Henrich 1966). 18 Another version of a reflection-theory is taking the reflective relation as subsisting ab initio. For the problems of th is version, see Henrich 1970, p. 267-. 19 Frank 1991, p. 460. My portrayal of Franks article is highly condensed and does not claim to account for it on anything but a very general level. For a more detailed account of Habermas's, Henrich's and Frank's debate see in addition to Frank's article (cont inued...) 12 the suspect myth of the preor non-social ground of subjectivity. This is because all the explanatory resources Habermas uses for constructing a picture of the emergence of subjectivity in intersubjective interaction in the end implicitly presuppose already some form of self-relation of the subject in the attempt to explain the emergence of the self-relation out of intersubjective relations. This holds for George Herbert Mead's socialpsychology as well as for Ernst Tugedhat's propositional account of the 'Iconsciousness' – both of which are pivotal sources for Habermas. For Frank both of these sources are versions of what he calls 'the reflectiontheory of self-consciousness'. Frank refers here to Dieter Henrich who has from the sixties on discussed the problems of the reflection-theory in various texts,17 and also has had an extensive debate with Habermas on the issue of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. What is then a reflection-theory and what is the problem with it? In very general terms, according to a reflection theory, self-consciousness is a reflective relation of a subject to itself as an object. Now, if this relation is supposed to emerge in an act or process of 'reflecting' where the subject cognitively relates to itself as if attending to one object among others, what has to be presupposed is that the subject has some means for identifying something as itself.18 In other words, the subject has to have already some kind of familiarity with itself in order to recognize itself so as to attain a cognitive self-relation. That Habermas, following Mead and Tugendhat, sees this reflection taking place in intersubjective encounters, as internalization of the perspective of other subjects to oneself, does not alter the basic structure of the problematics. Namely: I cannot internalize another's attitude or perspective to myself, if I am not already equipped with some means of recognizing something as an attitude to myself. Or to use metaphorical language: in order to recognize something in the mirror of others as an image of myself I have to be able to approximate what an image of myself could look like. If I do not have this kind of familiarity with myself the question arises: "wie soll denn ein Subjekt aus einem reflex lernen, das dieses Reflex es selbst ist"19. This self-familiarity is however INTRODUCTION 19 (...continued) also Dews 1995 . 20 See also Dews 1995. In fact, for Henrich and Frank Habermas's theory not only presupposes what it wants to avoid, but even more problematically presupposes what it wants to explain and is thus v iciously circula r. I wonder however, whether th is is quite correct: for Henrich and Frank only seem to say that some kind of self-familiarity has to be presupposed in order for the subject to identify itself in the act of reflection and so to effect an explicit cognitive self-relation. This is however not saying that it is the 'same thing' that is both presupposed and explained. On the other hand, I don't quite see , that Henrich's and Frank's way of biting the bullet and insisting on there existing a form of preor non-reflective self-familiarity preceding all reflective relations would make any more understandable the existence of those reflective relations. Either the pre-reflective level has elements which make the reflection possible, and then the explanans and explanandum are in the essential aspect 'the same thing', o r then they don't share any elements and then the level preceding the reflection cannot do the job in making the reflection possible. I cannot see how for example the theory whic h Henrich outline s in Henrich 1970 could escape this dilemma. 21 Frank 1991, p. 457. 22 Henrich 1970. 23 Ibidem., p. 281. 24 Idem.; Frank 1991, p. 458. 13 something that is denied by Habermas who wants to avoid any kind of reference to a preor non-social core of subjectivity or self-consciousness that would compromise his intersubjective 'naturalization' of subjectivity. But from Frank's and Henrich's point of view this can only mean that Habermas simply ignores or rejects the fact that his account presupposes what it wants to avoid.20 For Frank, Hegel now is even as much as an "archetypical"21 exponent of this kind of intersubjectivist version of the reflection-theory. Frank refers to Dieter Henrich's programmatic article 'Selbstbewusstsein; Kritische Einleitung in eine Theorie'22 where Henrich goes so far as to claim that (in contrast to Fichte) Hegel "never freed himself from the reflection theory of self-consciousness and so caused all subsequent Hegelianism to remain dogmatic and unproductive in theory of consciousness"23. Frank quotes Henrich going on: "Even though the thought that reflection could take place only in the context of social interaction, he [i.e. Hegel] never got free of the reflection model because his account of the structure of reflection which results is in no way influenced by its social origin"24. Henrich does not argue for his judgement of Hegel by referring to Hegel's texts, but Frank does. For Frank, it is the 'self-consciousness'INTRODUCTION 25 Idem. Frank refers here relatively freely to both the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Encyclopedia philosophy of subjective spirit. See ibidem, pp. 458-459. 26 Idem. Emphasis in the original. 27 Ibidem., p. 459. 14 subsection in both the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Encyclopedia philosophy of subject ive spirit which shows that Henrich's judgement is justified. Frank does not give any detailed analysis of Hegel's text either, but reads Hegel's formulations of self-consciousness being "für ein Selbstbewusstsein" and being mediated with itself "durch ein anderes Bewusstsein" as proof for the claim that for Hegel self-consciousness is "in der tat – wie bei Mead [und Habermas, H.I.] Resultat vorgängiger Reflexion in einem sozialen Feld".25 Frank seems to hesitate on the question of whether Hegel does in fact think that the process of reflection presupposes some form of pre-reflective self-familiarity. On the one hand he writes that according to Hegel "das Selbst nicht prä-reflective, also nicht vor der Reflexion in fremden Subjekten mit sich bekannt wird"26; on the other hand he writes that it is a lack in the "unmittelbaren Gewissheit seiner selbst"27 that the subjects are able to overcome in the reflective process of mutual recognition. According to Frank, Hegel however does not say anything about the epistemic status of this 'Gewissheit' and what Hegel means by it, remains according to him unclear. Be this last issue as it may, Frank's picture of intersubjectivity in Hegel's philosophy after the early Jena period is thus very different from that of Honneth, Habermas or Hösle. Where Habermas (along with Honneth and Hösle) sees the problem of Hegel's later work in the repression of intersubjectivity, Frank (along with Henrich) sees Hegel relying there too much on intersubjectivity. For Frank, both Habermas and Hegel reduce self-consciousness problematically to intersubjectivity, and deny – or at least fail to give an adequate account of – the inevitably pre-social core of self-conscious subjectivity. It seems thus that both of these opposite camps accuse Hegel of some form of reduction. For Honneth and Habermas, Hegel's philosophy from the Phenomenology of Spirit on reduces the – for them all important – fact of the intersubjective origin and constitution of subjectivity to a minor process in the eternal structure of the self-developing absolute spirit or idea. For Hösle Hegel's account of intersubjectivity is seriously compromized because he ends up in reducing subject-subject-relations to subject-objectrelations. On the other hand for Frank and Henrich Hegel is guilty of INTRODUCTION 28 Cramer 1979. 29 Ibidem, p. 219. 30 "The truth of consciousness is self-consciousness, and the latter is the ground of former, so that in existence all consciousness of another object is self-consciousness; I know of the object as mine (it is my representation), I know the refore in it o f myself. -The formula of self-con sciousness is I=I; -abstract freedom, pure ideality . -Therefore it is without reali ty; because i t itself , which is its object, is not such, there being p resent no difference between the ob ject and itself." 15 reducing subjecivity or self-consciousness problematically to intersubjectivity. And from their point of view Habermas (and obviously Honneth too) looks like just another Hegelian whose theory of self-consciousness is, precisely because of this intersubjectivist reduction, hopelessly "dogmatic and unproductive". Konrad Cramer however draws a very different picture of Hegel's conception of self-consciousness from that of Frank and Henrich. In his article 'Bewusstsein und Selbstbewusstsein; Vorschläge zur Rekonstruktion der systematischen Bedeutung einer Behauptung Hegels in § 424 der Berliner Encyclopädie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften'28 originally written already in 1973 Cramer argues that Hegel is precisely an "entschiedener Kritiker"29 of the reflection-theory of self-consciousness. Cramer does not deal explicitly with the intersubjectivity-issue, but offers a reading of Hegel's paragraph 424 in the Encyclopedia philosophy of subjective spirit (that is, of a passage in Hegel's text that starts the 'Selfconscousness'-subsection), a reading according to which Hegel in this paragraph refutes the reflection-theory. It is worth reproducing the whole of this paragraph here: Die W ahrhe it des Bewusstseins ist das Selbstbewusstsein, und dieses der Grund von jenem, so dass in der Existenz alles Bewusstsein eines anderen Gegenstandes Selbstbewusstsein ist; ich weiss von dem Gegenstande als dem me inigen (es ist meine Vorstellung), ich weiss daher darin von mir. – Der Ausdruck vom Selb stbewusstsein ist Ich=Ich; – abstrakte Freiheit , reine Idealität. – So ist es ohne Realität; den n es selbst, da s Gegenstand seiner ist, ist nicht ein solcher, da kein Unterschied desselben und seiner vorhanden ist.30 According to Cramer this paragraph is a critical consideration of a certain version of the reflection-theory of self-consciousness that Hegel finds for internal reasons inconsistent and which he himself will therefore reject. That is, Hegel only uses here the Fichtean formula I=I for exhibiting a problem in the reflection-theory of self-consciousness, and not for exhibiting his own views. Hegel is not – so Cramer – criticizing the reflectiontheory for the circularity-problem (nor the possible problem of infinite INTRODUCTION 31 Cramer 1979, p. 217. 32 Ibidem, p. 218. 33 Ibidem, p. 216. 16 regress) that stages Frank's and Henrich's critique of the different versions of reflection-theories, but for another reason. The deeper problem of the version of the reflection-theory that Hegel according to Cramer criticizes here is the fact that in its hands self-consciousness does not retain the necessary element for it being consciousness. Why is this? According to the theory that Cramer claims Hegel to be criticizing here "the truth of consciousness is self-consciousness", because consciousness of an object implies that the object is given as distinguished from the consciousness of it. This means that for there to be consciousness of an object there has to be also "so etwas wie eine ihrerseits als 'bewusst' zu qualifierende Beziehung auf mich selber"31, this 'myself' meaning consciousness (of an object). To be consciousness of an object as distinct from the consciousness of it, consciousness has to be consciousness both of the object and of the consciousness of the object. Hence consciousness is consciousness of the object as distinguished from itself, only if it is also consciousness of itself as distinct from the object. Without this, consciousness would not be consciousness of an object as distinguished from itself, and hence not consciousness at all. Thus, according to Cramer, Hegel is not in fact considering here the version of the reflection-theory according to which selfconsciousness is produced through an act of consciousness turning to itself, and so taking itself as an object, but a more radical version according to which self-consciousness is a necessary structural feature of consciousness as such.32 For Cramer this necessary self-relatedness of consciousness in fact follows from premises that Hegel has presented in the 'Consciousness as such'-subsection preceding the 'Self-consciousness'-subsection. Still according to Cramer Hegel wants here only to point to a problem, the solution of which presupposes taking into account the practical side of any human object-relation, that is, the structures of 'drive' and 'desire'.33 But why does even this radical reflectivist conception of self-consciousness fail? Why does Hegel say in the last sentence of § 424 that selfconsciousness is "without reality"? According to Cramer, because the object of the 'second order consciousness' implied in consciousness is not distinguished from the consciousness of it. The second order consciousness is simply a relation to a relation, and its object is thus not anything given as distinguished from the consciousness of it. Hence self-consciousINTRODUCTION 34 Ibidem, p. 223. One could object that of course a second order consciousness is not the same as the first order consciousness that is its object. The point is however that in this purely formal account of consciousness self-consciousness is an empty abstraction without any "substantiellem und darin wiederständigem Inhalt" (ibidem, p. 223). -There is nothing for the second order consciousness to be conscious of. 35 Ibidem, p. 225. 36 Hespe 1991. 37 Ibidem, p. 512, note 54. 17 ness is "without reality". It has no object that would fulfill the necessary condition of objecthood, that is, of being given as distinguished or different from the consciousness of it. According to Cramer, this is for Hegel simply a "Paradigma eines Ungedankens"34 Although I will argue in the main-text of this work that Cramer's interpretation is in fact totally misled as an interpretation of Hegel's text, its merit is to point to the fact that a purely formal account of self-consciousness which doesn't take seriously also the practical aspect of consciousness, is inadequate. Cramer's thesis is that the function of § 424 is to show the necessity of a more contentful account of self-consciousness and its object, an account which Hegel starts to develop in the following paragraphs of the 'self-consciousness'-subsection. There Hegel according to Cramer leaves behind the "Reflexiontheorie des Selbstbewusstsein und die in ihr sedimentierte cartesianische Voraussetzung der Selbstevidenz des cogito me cogitare" and replaces this empty abstraction with the "Evidenz des Selbst in der Bestimmtheit des 'Triebes' und der 'Begierde'".35 Unfortunately this is however where Cramer's article ends and the themes of practical intentionality of 'drive' and 'desire' are not developed any further. Also the question remains whether this analysis really effaces the suspicion that in accounting for the intersubjective relation of recognition between two subjectivities (following the paragraphs dealing with desire) Hegel still falls into the trap of the reflection-model. This is after all Frank's and Henrich's precise claim. Also Franz Hespe in his article 'System und Funktion der Philosophie des Subjektiven Geistes'36 also defends Hegel against (Henrich's) accusations of Hegel being a reflection-theorist. His argument is that "Selbstbewusstsein bezeichnet bei Hegel [...] nicht [...] einer empirischen Reflexion des Subjekts auf sich"37 but is INTRODUCTION 38 Ibidem, pp. 511-512. 39 Ibidem, pp. 512-513. 40 Ibidem, p. 513. 18 vielmehr die nichtempirische – im kantischen Sprachgebrauch tranzendentale – Bedingung allen Wahrnehmens, Denkens, Tun und Handelns.38 This formulation of a 'transcendental condition' at first sight resembles the radical version of the reflection-theory – in which self-consciousness is a structural feature, that is in a certain sense 'transcendental condition' of any intentional relation – which Hegel according to Cramer criticizes in § 424. Hespe however goes on to state the (hardly disputable) fact that in Hegel's account intersubjectivity plays in fact an essential role in the formation of fully developed self-consciousness. He writes: Selbst bewusstsein ist seinem Begriffe n ach auf Be ziehung zu andere m Bewusstsein an gewiesen; ist dah er seinem Begriffe n ach intersubjektiv und erzeugt Intersubjektivität nicht erst durch Aktion und Reaktion zweier Subjekte.39 Thus it seems that Hespe isn't speaking of a transcendental condition of all object-consciousness in the sense that Hegel according to Cramer criticizes in § 424, but of something essentially involving intersubjectivity. Thirdly Hespe emphasizes the essential practicality of self-consciousness: Selbstbewusstsein erweist sich wesentlich im praktischen Bewusstsein (Begierde, Kampf um Anerkennung ) und dieses damit als Voraussetzung des theoretischen Bewusstseins selbst, indem erst im praktischen Bewusstsein das Selbstbewusstsein sich auch für das theoretisch e Bewusstsein ko nstitutive Bedeutung des S elbstbezug im Bezug auf anderes aufdeckt[emphasis, H.I .].40 Here Hespe agrees with Cramer in emphasizing that self-consciousness for Hegel involves an essentially practical moment. On the whole, Hespe holds the opposite view from that of Hösle in claiming that intersubjectivity in Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit is a condition for subject-objectrelations – and not reduced to them as Hösle claims. But aren't there serious problems lurking in these characterizations? It seems that intersubjectivity plays here an extremely central role – being a transcendental condition even for intentionality or consciousness as such. According to Hespe's formulations a subject could not have a relation to an object without an intersubject ively constituted self-consciousness. In the last quotation Hespe seems to attribute to the act or "struggle of recognition" a role in the formation of this intersubjective self-consciousness preceding consciousness. From a Frankian/Henrichian point of view, a question arises how is then the struggle or act of recognition to be understood if not some kind INTRODUCTION 41 Ibidem, p. 512, note 54. 42 McDowell 1996. 19 of an "empirical reflection of a subject to itself"41 through another subject. This possibility seems to be ruled out by Hespe's strong claim that there are no intentional relations before intersubjectively constituted self-consciousness. Namely if this is so, then before intersubjectivity there are no subjects capable of consciously relating to each other and through each others to themselves. We cannot get even get as far as to ask how would a subject recognize an object as itself in the reflection through another subject, because there would be no objects whatsoever for this subject (and correspondingly, no subject with intentional relations). But if this reading of Hegel is right, then he seems to be guilty of a very serious version of the reduction attributed to him by Frank and Henrich: intersubjectivity is so deeply a 'transcendental ground' of empirical subjectivity that nothing in that subjectivity can explain the existence of it. It is essential for full human being in the world, but cannot be brought about with the means that humans have. However, even if Hespe's article does not explicitly answer to these – from the perspective of Frank's and Henrich's interests quite obvious – questions, it points to a theme that might provide means for answering them. That is the theme of desire (to which Hespe in passing points to in p. 513), which also according to Cramer is of vital importance in understanding Hegel's account of consciousness and self-consciousness. Whether it will offer something capable of providing an understanding of an intentional relation to the world and others subjects before an intersubjectively mediated level of subjectivity, will be discussed in the main text of my work. My point will be that Hegel attributes already to the pre-social level of subjectivity that he calls desire, a complex structure of intentionality that is fully adequate to enable subjects to encounter each other and arise on the level of intersubjecively mediated subjectivity. An essential point to note in this respect is that intentionality involves normativity, that is, criteria of correctness of the content putatively given in the intentional relation. A useful contemporary context of discussion for the analysis of Hegel's text on this issue is provided by John McDowell and Robert Brandom who both refer to Hegel as a pioneer on issues that are important to themselves. In his book Mind and World42 and in several articles John McDowell has tried to show that many or most contemporary standpoints in epistemology are based on the false assumption that primary givens in INTRODUCTION 43 "The space of reasons is the space within which thought moves, and its topography is that of rational interconnections between conceptual contents; we might equally well speak of the space of concepts." (McDowell 1995, p. 888) 44 McDowell 1996, p. 8. 45 'A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge', reprinted in Ern est LePore (ed.): Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Blackwell 1986, p. 310. Quoted in McDowell 1996, p. 16. 46 McDowell 1996, p. 14. 47 Ibidem, pp. xi-xii. 48 Ibidem, p. 41. 20 intuition are not conceptually structured, that the Sellarsian 'space of reason' or 'space of concepts'43 has an outer boundary behind which the world lies. According to Mind and World this dualistic premiss leads to oscillation between two options: either it is supposed that perceptual input in intuition, even though not conceptually structured, can function as evidence; or then the impotence of this position (purely causal, non-conceptual 'impacts' from a world outside the space of reasons could at their best provide "exculpations", not "justifications" for beliefs44) is taken into account and a coherentist extreme position is adopted. This position holds that no experience or intuition could count as evidence for a belief, precisely because being outside the space of reasons, the world can only provide causal impacts on our senses which do not justify anything. Thus Donald Davidson writes: "nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief"45. This position however has the absurd consequence that it makes the spontaneous conceptual activity, that is, reasoning or reason giving totally "frictionless"46 by rational constraint from the world. McDowell's wish is to save a "minimal empiricism" according to which "the relation between mind and world is normative" in the sense that "thinking that aims to judgement, or at least the fixation of belief, is answerable to the world – to how things are"47 and not solely to a sphere of other beliefs or judgements unconstrained by the world. This necessitates thinking that the space of reasons is not limited only to minds but also includes the world given in intuitions. According to McDowell Kant almost got it right in thinking that the same conceptual capacities that are operative in spontaneous thinking are effective also in intuition. However Kant compromises this insight by what McDowell calls his "transcendental framework"48, that is, his dualism between the world of appearance and the world or thing 'in itself'. By doing this, he in the end establishes an outer limit to the sphere of reasons INTRODUCTION 49 Ibidem, p. 44. 50 Brandom 1995, p. 895. 51 Ibidem, p. 898. 52 Ibidem, p. 897. 53 Idem. 21 and ends up talking of the mysterious causal impacts by the thing itself on our senses – hence committing himself to a position which is deeply unstabile. McDowell thinks that without the dualistic transcendental framework Kant's philosophy would provide the correct picture – and this is where Hegel comes on McDowell's scene: It is central to [Hegel's] absolute idealism to reject the idea that the conceptual has an outer boundary, [...]. This expresses exactly the idea I have been using, in which the conceptual is unbounded; there is nothing outside it.49 One may ask, does not McDowell's own dualism between the 'second' and 'first nature' (the latter being apparently outside the space of reasons) in the end however re-establish a version of the positions he criticizes. Nevertheless, for McDowell the merit of Hegel's absolute idealism is precisely to have formulated an epistemological picture which McDowell himself endorses: a picture where the world as such is revealed as conceptually structured for the intuiting and thinking subject and thus can function as a normative instance in deciding whether beliefs about it are correct or false. Robert Brandom has however criticized McDowell for leaving out, or at least downplaying, an important aspect in the constitution of the normativity of space of reasons. That is its "essentially social articulation"50. In Brandom's picture, the world alone is not enough for providing conceptual practices their specific normative character. According to him, the phrase 'space of reasons' is to be understood only "as an abstraction from concrete practices of giving and asking for reasons"51. For Brandom, the content of any concept is determined by its possible correct use in judgements and inferences, in linguistic activities that are socially administered. In using concepts in communication one (implicitly or explicitly) commits herself to a claim of using them correctly – this including all the inferences that her judgements allow. One of Brandom's examples52 is a twenty month old child toddling around and uttering the sentence "the house is on fire" over and again in a play-like fashion. Unlike his seven year old sister, this child is not yet able to master the inferential connections of this sentence and the concepts it involves. "He does not know what follows from it, what would be evidence for it"53 and thus cannot yet be accounted INTRODUCTION 54 Idem. 55 Brandom 1999. 56 Ibidem, p. 173. 22 responsible and capable of committing himself to a claim of using the sentence correctly. In other words: "He does not know his way around the space of reasons well enough".54 Things are different with adults (and presumably already with seven year olds). In using concepts adults subordinate themselves under the authority of other subjects as to whether their use of concepts is correct. Thus the normative force imposed on conceptual activities derives not only from the world but also from others subjects. No one alone can judge whether her conceptualizations follow the inferential articulation of the space of concepts. In his article 'Some Pragmatic Themes in Hegel's Idealism: Negotiation and Administration in Hegel's Account of the Structure and Content of Conceptual Norms'55 Brandom pictures Hegel as the one philosopher who has clearly articulated this view. For Brandom the idea behind Hegel's concept of recognition is the following: the existence of socially administered conceptual practices presupposes that subjects recognize each other reciprocally as responsible users of concepts and judges as to the correct applications of concepts. Thus by recognition Hegel means the essentially intersubjective institution and sustainment of the sphere of conceptual normativity, that is the space of reasons. This sphere also is necessary for (at least full-fledged) self-consciousness: "Hegel thinks of Spirit – the realm of the normative – as produced and sustained by the processes of mutual recognition, which simultaneously institute self-conscious selves and their communities".56 We may ask however, whether Brandom's strong emphasis on the social source of the normative authority in conceptual practices saves McDowell's intuition of the world as the source of authority in questions of the correctness of beliefs or judgements. After all, isn't Brandom at least very close to adopting the 'frictionless' picture in which the truth of conceptually structured beliefs rely only on other beliefs, a picture where only the never-ending negotiation procedure between concept-users supplies authority for questions of truth? Is the world, which is revealed in intuition, itself conceptually structured or isn't it? Brandom seems to be answering to this kind of worry in INTRODUCTION 57 Ibidem, p. 175. 58 Idem. 59 Idem. 23 distinguishing between "two flavours of judgements"57: immediate and mediate. By immediate judgements he means those paradigmatically taking place in perception, judgements that are made already by "desiring animals". "Immediate judgements are ones that [even] a properly trained and tuned animal who has mastered the responsive use of the relevant concepts will make automatically" in perceiving its environment and immediately "treating something as food, for instance"58. Brandom writes further: These noninferential applications of concepts (= immediate judgements) are wrung from or elicited by the particulars to which the concepts are on that occasion applied. By contrast, responsibility for (= authority over) inferentially elicited applicatio ns of con cepts (= m ediate judgements) is v ested in the conce pts or universals, whose inferential relations underwrite the judgement that is the conclusion. Immediate judgements express a dimension along which particulars exert an authority over the universals or concepts that apply to them. Mediate judgements express a dimension along which universals or concepts exert an authority over the particulars to which they apply. The characterized individuals – particulars as falling und er universa ls – that are p resented in judgements (= app lications o f concepts) emerge as the product of negotiation between the two reciprocal dimensions of authority (eac h with its d ual, correlative sort of responsibility). This is the feature of concept use and development – the process of experience that is for this reason intelligible at o nce as the applica tion and as the institution of conceptual norms – that is modelled by reciprocal recognition.59 Hence there are two directions of authority: one from the side of the socially instituted realm of universals and another from the side of the world of particulars. On the one hand, applying concepts is bound by the inferential relations between other concepts, the 'space' of which forms the system of concepts of a given community. On the other hand, it is the particulars themselves that decide which concepts they allow themselves to be subsumed under, and so in the end concepts do have a hold in the world. This of course does not answer the question of what it is in those particulars that determines under which concepts they are to be subsumed under. Are particulars in the world somehow 'conceptually earmarked'? If they are not, then they cannot provide reasons for applying one concept and not another in a given token of intuition. Thus, in order to make sense of the 'negotiation' between these two sources of authority, Brandom perhaps should give a stronger role to that intuition which McDowell INTRODUCTION 60 To be precise , Brandom write s: "[...][H]egel c learly subscribes [...] to the following three claims: 1. Spirit is a self-conscious self. 2. Self-conscious selfhood is a social achievement, requiring actual recogn ition of and by an other, to who m the ind ividual self ach ieving self -consciousness in this way is then bound in a recognitive community. 3. Spirit has no other; there is noth ing 'outside' it. The trouble is that of course these claims are jointly incompatible." (Brandom 1999, p. 178). These formulations of course o pen up man y questions. Here I am interested only in the question of whether the two sources of authority or normativity depicted above are necessa rily inco mpatib le. How ever, if successf ul, my inte rpretation of Hege l's concep tion of c onsciou sness as self-consciousness wil l shed some light on the question of what should be made of claim number 1. in relation to Hege l's mature philosophy o f spirit. 61 Brandom 1999, p. 178. 24 claims to be Hegel's: that the world given in intuition really is conceptually structured. Yet, in talking about desiring animals already capable of judging something as food, Brandom seems to point to a somehow 'passive' conceptual capacity that is directly responsive to states of affairs in the world. Obviously we have to assume that animals cannot subsume something under the universal of 'food for me' without the world itself in the end deciding whether the subsumption is correct. An animal or species of animals cannot successfully 'treat' something as food for it if this something happens to be uneatable for it. -And the classes of eatable and uneatable clearly are something belonging to the structure of the world and not just to the subjective conceptualizations of this animal or animal species. In the end Brandom remains undecided between two, according to him, contradictory claims, both of which he takes Hegel to be endorsing:60 1. The space of reasons, that is, the space of inferential relations which determine the content of concepts, is a social achievement and is socially administered by subjects recognizing each others as competent administers. 2. The spirit (that is, more or less, the space of reasons) has no other; there is nothing outside it. Brandom writes: "of course these claims are jointly incompatible"61. It is as if Brandom were pondering here whether the strong emphasis on the social nature of the space of reasons or concepts can be combined with the Hegelian idea that this space really has no outer limit, that it is also 'out there in the world' independently of socially constituted ways of carving the world. Brandom's intersubjective account of the space of reasons in the INTRODUCTION 62 Brandom 's appeals t o the history and "authority of past [concept-]applications" (ibidem, p. 179), which he also claims to be Hegel's idea, of course does not do much to answer this question in the end. 63 Hespe 1991, p. 516. 64 Idem. 25 end remains rather quietist on the question of whether what is socially constituted, can consistently be claimed to be anything else than a particular way of carving the world by a particular historical community. Perhaps the mediate judgements are 'too mediate' so as to lose the firm contact with the world that the immediate ones possess (however that contact might be explainable).62 Now, even with the risk of twisting Brandom's thoughts nearly unrecognizable, I want to suggest that his dilemma is the same as that implied in Hespe's text. On the one hand conceptual activities seem to be strongly social and thus presupposing mutual recognition for the authority of other subject's judgements about correct conceptualization. And this seems to imply that relations to the world and oneself are mediated by socially constructed concepts. That is to say, an intentional relation with conceptual content presupposes sociality, and thus sociality or intersubjectivity provides some form of a "transcendental condition", to borrow Hespe's words, for intentionality in any contentful meaning. Yet on the other hand, already a purely desiring relation to the world obviously involves ways of, and criteria of correctness for, conceptualizing – that is: intentionality with conceptual content. According to Hespe, the function of the 'phenomenology'-section of Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit is to show the necessity of overcoming a purely individual level of subjectivity, that is "den übergang zum individuell/allgemeinen Bezug des Subjekts auf die Aussenwelt zu vollziehen", to become a subject "dessen Gedanken nicht bloss seine ureigen, sondern allgemeine, mitteilbare und wahrheitsfähige sind".63 Without the attainment of this universal, or intersubjective level, the subject "bliebe [...] bei der monadischen Individualität, die sich weder von der Aussenwelt unterscheidet, noch Selbstbewusstsein hat"64. It is clear from Hespe's text that the overcoming of purely 'monadic individuality' in Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit happens in recognition. At least two points are conspicuous in Hespe's formulations. First, that a socially mediated, "universal" level a subjectivity is a necessary condition for "Wahrheitsfähigkeit" of thoughts or thought-contents. And INTRODUCTION 26 secondly, that it is even a necessary condition for the subject's capability of differentiating itself from the "outer world". But if this is true, does this mean that in Hegel's account a desiring animal (presupposing that they do not have a social ly mediated consciousness) cannot have any 'wahrheitsfähig' thoughts or representations about its environment? And furthermore, does this mean, that a desiring animal is not even capable of differentiating itself from its environment? This surely would be an exaggerated position, if one only thinks about Brandom's depiction of a desiring animal capable of 'treating something as food". Surely an animal can not only be mistaken in for instance taking as food for it something that proves to be poisonous for it, but also know when it has made a mistake – surely its conceptualizations or 'thoughts' are 'wahrheitsfähig' in this simple sense. And surely a healthy animal can differentiate between itself and that which it takes to be food for it – whether this means not taking as food its own body, or its sensat ions of near lying food. This is simply to say that an animal has intentional relations to the world and to itself as part of the world that are normatively enforced by the world itself. * * * * * This rather confusing set of points of views to Hegel and themes connected to Hegel sets the task for my reading of Hegel's final account of the subjective spirit (from now on PSS) in his Encyclopedia philosophy of subjective spirit from 1830. What does Hegel in this text mean by selfconsciousness? What is its relation to intersubjectivity? And how are selfconsciousness and intersubjectivity related to contentfull intentionality? My thesis is that intentionality as such with conceptual content and answerable to the world itself does not yet according to Hegel presuppose intersubjectivity, although full-fledged intentional relations to the world and oneself as part of the world certainly are socially mediated. In the first chapter I will try to answer some important questions concerning the architectonics of Hegel's Philosophy of subjective spirit that I think are essential in understanding what is in fact going on in this complicated text. In the second chapter I will start by analyzing the paragraph 424 and offer a different reading of it from that of Konrad Cramer. The outcome will be a precision of what Hegel in that paragraph means by self-consciousness. That meaning of self-consciousness, which I will call self-consciousness1, will be in the chapters following distinguished from other meanings of self-consciousness in Hegel's text. I will argue that 'selfINTRODUCTION 27 consciousness' in PSS mostly means something completely different than what is usually meant by 'self-consciousness'. Thus what I will call selfconsciousness1, 2 and 3 are not explicitly reflective self-relations at all. The more ordinary meaning of self-consciousness as consciousness of oneself as distinct from what ever else one can be conscious of, is present in Hegel's text mostly only implicitly. For understanding all the phenomena or structures which Hegel discusses under the term 'self-consciousness', it is essential to take into account the fact that consciousness is always consciousness of some content and also that it necessarily involves normativity. Only by distinguishing between these different meanings of self-consciousness, and by taking into account the content and normativity of consciousness, it is possible to consider whether the views, presented below, about Hegel's account of self-consciousness, intersubjectivity and intentionality hit their target. In my conclusion I will return to these views and try to sort out what is true and what is false in them. 65 Hege l writes: "Alles ist in der Empfindung und, wenn man will, alles, was im geistigen Bewusstsein und in der Vernunft hervortritt, hat seine Quelle und Ursprung in derselben; denn Quelle und Ursprung heisst nichts anderes als die erste, unmittelbarste Weise, in der etwas erscheint." 28 1. On the architectonics of the Philosophy of subjective spirit There are several difficult questions concerning the architectonics of PSS which makes reading this text a complicated task. The general question is, what is the relation between the progressions of the three main-sections, Anthropology, Phenomenology and Psychology and what kind of connections are there between the progressions of subsections and chapters of these main-sections. First point to bear in mind is that the progression of these sections does not follow the temporal ontogenesis of an individual subject. The stages of the presentation do not exist separately in time, but are according to Hegel, only "Momente, Zustände, Bestimmungen" (§ 380) of an organic whole. Thus Hegel makes throughout his text references to stages that in the expositional order follow only much later. To take just one example, in the Anthropology Hegel already discusses what he calls 'inner sensations' (innere Empfindungen) (see §§ 399-402), that is, practically motivating sensations or feelings, part of which presuppose for their content later stages of the progression. The point here is that any 'spiritual' content can be present in the soul on level of sensation (Empfindung).65 This points to the fact, that 'Anthropology', 'Phenomenology' and 'Psychology' cannot be read in any simple way as three consecutive phases in a single progression, but rather as analyzing one and the same topic from different perspectives. In the end, 'soul', 'consciousness' and 'spirit' are moments of a concrete individual person. Even if it is not easy to discern in an entirely unequivocal way, what is the difference between these perspectives, some differentiating features can be pointed out. As I said, the soul has 'sensation' (or 'feeling' (Gefühl)) as its characteristic mode of givenness for in principle any content. Now, also consciousness (Bewusstsein) has its own mode of givennes for contents. This mode Hegel calls variably 'Objekt', 'Gegenstand' or 'Vorstellung'. As I will try to show in the next chapter, 'Objekt' and 'Gegenstand' are not for Hegel names for one and the same concept and since there is no easy way to reproduce the vocabular difference in English, where ever this distincti1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 29 on has to be emphasized, I will leave Gegenstand untranslated even if this practice sometimes leads to very bad style. Also, where ever it is important to emphasize the connection between Gegen-stand and Vor-stellung, I will leave also Vorstellung untranslated. In many cases 'representation' is however a good enough translation for Vorstellung. Now, whereas sensation or feeling as the mode of givenness peculiar to the soul is not yet intentional, gegenständlichkeit or Vorstellung as the mode of givenness peculiar to consciousness is an intentional mode of givenness. Thus a Gegenstand or Vorstellung is an intentional correlate of a conscious subject. This correlate can be either presently given in the outer senses, or then it can be merely imagined. This Hegel says in Zusatz to § 418 by pointing out that an object or Gegenstand can be either "[...] an outer or an inner [...]", meaning that it can be given in a present intuition or in a 'mere' representation. Like sensation, also gegenständlichkeit can be a mode of givenness in principle for any kind of content – anything can be given as an object, i.e. as representation. However, in this regard, there are differences between the levels Hegel discusses in different chapters of the 'Phenomenology'. Thus in § 418 Z Hegel points to the inadequacy of the 'sensuous consciousness' for "the for itself universal content of right, ethical and religious". The more precise logical forms of givenness analyzed in 'Sensuous consciousness' are not developed or rich enough for containing anything other than merely sensually given Gegenstände. Still, the point is that even these contents can be given for consciousness as a whole, as they can be given in the soul. In § 401 in the 'Anthropology' Hegel compares sensation and Gegenständlickeit as forms of givenness of normatively loaded contents and says that whereas feeling as the form for these universal contents does not justify them ("Sensation and the heart are not the forms through which something like the religious, ethical, true, just etc is justified", § 401) the givenness of the contents for consciousness in the gegenständlich form, apart from not justifying them, also does not motivate. Hegel refers to the common sense thought that it is not enough that "Principles, religion etc. are only in the head". This is so because 'being in the head' means being "in consciousness" and thus "gegenständlich" as "distant from the concrete subjectivity" (§ 401). This again points to the facts, that despite their differences, both sensation peculiar to the soul and Gegenständlichkeit or Vorstellung peculiar to consciousness are modes of givenness for in principle any content. 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 66 See Halbig 1999, pp. 71-84. 67 McDo well 1996 , p. 12. As far a s I know, Mc Dowell do es not call the pa ssive operation of conceptual capacities in sensitivity or intuition 'judging'. Yet, saying that the world is revealed to the subject as conceptually structured is saying that it is as well judgementally (and inferentially) articulated. This means that the concep tual activity at work in in tuition is 'judging' (and inferring). 68 Halbig 1999, p.77. 69 See §§ 462-464. 70 Because any content can be given also on the mode of givennes peculiar to the soul, passive thinking can also in form the contents of the soul. 30 But what about 'spirit' discussed in the 'Psychology'? Does 'spirit' possess a peculiar mode of givenness of its own which is not reducible to those of the soul or consciousness? My suggestion is that 'thinking' analyzed at the end of the subsection of 'Theoretical spirit' should be considered as a third mode of givenness. However, here we have to make the proviso that characterizing thinking simply as a mode of givenness is inadequate, since thinking is also activity. Christoph Halbig has, I think convincingly, shown that by subjective thinking Hegel means two different things. First, the general activity of processing the given, as it were passively, and secondly the active thinking that spontaneously operates with thought-contents.66 This differentiation can be taken to be more or less the same as that which McDowell points to in his Mind and World by "the passive operation of conceptual capacities in sensation" and their "active exercise in [spontaneous] judgements".67 Whereas sensation and representation as such are forms of 'being in' (the soul) and 'being for' (the consciousness), active or spontaneous (or as Halbig says "explicit"68) thinking is a mode where contents are being actively reflected. Because there are no other means for reflecting thought-contents, than other thought-contents, this comes close to saying that active thinking is a mode of givenness of thoughts for each other, a mode that is however at the same time an activity. Important here is that according to Hegel active thinking operates with arbitrary signs. Thus the mode of givenness peculiar to active thinking seems to be necessarily mediated by signs.69 What is more important for my purposes however, is the passive form of thinking, that is, thinking that is operative in processing the given for consciousness.70 I think that a useful way of characterizing the relation of 'Phenomenology' and 'Psychology' is to say that in the 'Phenomenology' Hegel develops only very general features of the intentional relation of consciousness to the world. On the other hand the psychological processes 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 71 "Da Ich für sich nur als formelle Identität ist, so ist die dialektische Bewegung des Begriffs, die Fortbest immung des Bewusstseins, ihm nicht als seine Tätigkeit, sondern sie ist an sich und für dasselbe Veränderung des Objekts." 72 "Die Psychologie betrachtet deshalb die Vermögen oder allgemeinen Tätigkeitsweisen des Geistes als solchen, Anschauen, Vortstellen, Erinnern usf., Begierden usf., teils ohne den Inhalt, der nach Erscheinung sich im empirischen Vorstellen, auch im Denken w ie in der Begierde und im Wil len f indet, te i l s ohne d ie Formen, in der Se ele als Naturbestimmung, in dem Bewusstsein selbst als ein fur sich vorhandener Gegenstand desselben zu sein ." 73 That Psychology explicitly analyzes psychological processes necessary for the constitution of givenness does not imply that the subject under analysis in 'Psychology' were itself already on a level where it could understand the truth of itself, as Iring Fetscher suggests (Fetscher 1970, p. 137). As I see it, to say this is to confuse the level of subjective sp irit as a topic of analysis and the level of absolute spirit or philosophy, which is the level 'from' where subjective spirit is being analyzed. 74 Cf. Hösle 1987, p. 347. 31 involved in the production of intentional content for consciousness are analyzed in 'Psychology'. In paragraph 415 in beginning of the 'Phenomenology' Hegel points out that "the development of consciousness is for the consiousness not its own activity, but is [...] for consciousness alteration of its object".71 Furthermore it seems that it is mostly only this 'alteration of the object', that is, different organizational levels of what is given for consciousness that is discussed in the 'Phenomenology'. On the other hand according to the first paragraph of 'Psychology' "Psychology [...] examines the faculties and general modes of activity of spirit as such". This it does on the one hand without the content [...] that is found in empirical representation, also in thinking as well as in desiring and willing, on the other hand without the forms of being in soul as natural determinations [and] in consciousness as an [...] object at hand."§ 440)72 Thus whereas the discussion in 'Phenomenology' is abstracted from the fact that givenness and constitution of objects for consciousness presupposes subjective processes of passive thinking and hence analyzes only different levels of givenness for consciousness, the discussion in Psychology is abstracted from the results of these psychological processes, that is (in the case of 'Phenomenology') objects for consciousness.73 That is, whereas the level Hegel calls consciousness only has representations, the level he calls spirit represents, that is, produces representations. Using this distinction as an interpretative key at least removes the mysteriousness of the fact that Hegel at first sight seems to discuss same themes twice, first in 'Phenomenology' and then in 'Psychology'.74 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 75 Hösle 1987, p. 371. 76 A wild guess is that Hösle is trying to read the 'method' which Hegel outlines in the introduction of the Phenomenology of Spirit into the Encyclopedia. 77 Fetscher 1970, pp. 105-106. 32 Three more specific questions are especially pressing for what I will say later on. First, the question of how the relation of the 'Consciousness as such'-subsection and the 'Self-consciousness'-subsection in the Phenomenology should be understood. As in the case of the main sections, also here we should not be too hasty in reading these two subsections as simply two successive stages of a single progression. This simple way reading has led for example Vittorio Hösle to the puzzlement of how something as simple as 'Desire' (which is the topic of first chapter of 'Self-consciousness') can be the next stage after 'Understanding' (which is the topic of the last chapter of 'Consciousness as such') which is after all already a quite complicated level of givenness for the subject.75 This question seems to presuppose that in all cases a previous level is, or should be, sublated (aufgehoben) into the next one and so any level contains all the developmental moments reached in the previous one.76 Here I think Iring Fetscher77 has a more correct intuition when she suggests that the progressions of 'Consciousness as such' and 'Selfconsciousness'-subsection should be understood rather as parallel. If this is right, as I think it is, then Hösle's problem does not arise: 'Understanding' is not a transition to 'Desire' because 'Consciousness as such' and 'Selfconsciousness' are not two consecutive but parallel developments. My suggestion is that 'Consciousness as such' and 'Self-consciousness' should actually be read as parallel, or more precisely, as mutually complementary points of view to one and the same development. Doing this is not an easy task, but I hope to be able to show that it has a point. To put it roughly: whereas Hegel in 'Consciousness as such' develops the 'theoretical' aspect of intentionality, in 'Self-consciousness' he develops its practical aspect. That is, whereas in 'Consciousness as such' the Gegenstand or object of consciousness has only practically neutral predicates, in 'Selfconsciousness' the Gegenstand or object has practically motivating predicates. In both cases the development goes from a singular perspective to a universal one, and the development of the intentional correlate of consciousness from something that can be already for a singular consciousness to something that can be only for a consciousness that has transcended singularity. 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 33 Terminologically this progress is reflected by transition from calling the intentional correlate of consciousness 'merely' 'Gegenstand' to calling the intentional correlate 'Object'. Hence the singular or immediate consciousness analyzed on the one hand in 'Sensuous consciousness' and on the other hand in 'Desire' is related to 'mere Gegenstände', whereas the mediated consciousness is related to 'Objekte' or 'freie Objekte'. This theme I will discuss more explicitly in chapter 3. The second more specific question which nevertheless is related to the previous one, is how we should understand the role of intersubjectivity in the 'Phenomenology'-section. Namely 1) if the developments of 'Consciousness as such' and 'Self-consciousness' are somehow parallel, and 2) since intersubjectivity is explicitly introduced in 'Recognitive self-consciousness' in the 'Self-consciousness'-subsection, does this mean that intersubjectivity is also, if not explicitly then at least implicitly introduced somewhere along the way of the development of 'Consciousness as such'? I think that an affirmative answer is plausible. It seems that both 'Desire' and 'Sensuous consciousness' are 'singular' precisely in the sense of not being mediated by other perspectives. They are, as it were, aspects of a purely first person perspective. Whereas in 'Sensuous consciousness' Hegel analyzes the theoretical aspect of a purely individual point of view, in 'Desire' he analyses its practical aspect. Although a very precise correspondence between the next stages of 'Consciousness as such' and 'Self-consciousness' is not easy to discern, yet there is some plausibility in saying that what happens in 'Recognitive self-consciousness', happens also in 'Perception'. In both cases the individual point of view is being transcended and consciousness becomes able to have as its intentional correlates objects that a purely individual point of view cannot have. In both cases consciousness becomes intersubjectively mediated and hence we may say that there are not two transcendings of the individual perspective but only two aspects of one transcending, the practical and the theoretical. Why would this be plausible in the case of 'Consciousness as such'? Because for 'sensuous consciousness' the categorial determinations of Gegenständlichkeit (see § 418) seem to be those that are present already in a purely singular perspective to the world. Further, in 'Perception' (Wahrnehmung) the object is that which is according to Hegel present for our "everyday consciousness and more or less for the sciences" (§ 420). This certainly implies transcending the pure first person perspective and being on the level of 'objectivity' in the sense of 'allgemeingültigkeit'. Here 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 78 See for example the "habit of satisfaction" in § 410 which connects closely with the sublimation of the singular desire in social mediation treated in the 'Recognitive selfconsciousness'. The habit of "looking", discussed by Hegel in the same paragraph is of direct relevance for Psycho logy and would be worth a closer look from the point of v i ew o f i ts poss ib le in te r sub jec t ive med ia t ion . The re l a t ion of hab i t and intersub jectivity will be discussed by the author in forthcoming works. 79 See Hösle 1987, p. 372 f f. and Hespe 1991, p. 515 , note 59. 34 objects are taken as what they are, even if not from anyone's perspective, yet from an intersubjectively shared perspective. It is quite natural to think that the encounter with another perspective in the 'Recognitive self-consciousness' is relevant for the transition from 'sensuous consciousness' to 'perception'. Terminologically this transition is, as already mentioned, reflected in the way that 'sensuous consciousness' only has 'Gegenstände' (§§ 418-419), 'Wahrnehmung' has 'Objekte' (§ 421). This however does not as such answer to the question of how the introduction of intersubjectivity in 'Phenomenology' (explicitly in the 'Selfconsciousness'-chapter and more implicitly in the 'Consciousness as such'chapter) relates to 'Anthropology' and 'Psychology'. I will pass over this question in relation to 'Anthropology' by just noting that much of the discussion already in the first sub-section 'Natural soul' concerns explicitly social, or intersubjectivity-involving, determinations. This is evidently true also in many other places in the 'Anthropology'.78 The question of the role of intersubjectivity in 'Psychology' as a whole is more difficult. There is a great temptation to defend Hegel against Vittorio Hösle's accusations according to which Hegel ignores or at least downplays intersubjectivity in the 'Psychology' by saying, as Franz Hespe does, that the whole discussion of 'Psychology' deals with a level of individual subjectivity that is already intersubjectively mediated.79 On a general level, at least the simple fact that 'Phenomenology' and 'Psychology' are in Hegel's Darstellung two consecutive sections, does not as such yet provide an answer to this question. Hegel's way of proceeding in PSS is clearly more complicated than some kind of simple Aufhebung of any previous level of discussion into the next ones. So the question will have to be answered in a more complicated way, what ever it will turn out to be. In a way Hösle is certainly right. Namely, Hegel says explicitly in the 'Psychology' scarcely nothing about relations to other subjects. Therefore Hespe's way of suggesting that the subject that is discussed in 'Psychology' is implicitly socially mediated would be a handy answer: Hegel does not have to discuss explicitly subject's relation to other subjects in 'Psychology', 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 80 Hespe writes: "D as 'allgemeine Selbstbewusstsein' ist das vergesel lschaftete Selbstbewusstsein, dass im folgenden sowohl den theoretischen wie den prak tischen Geist begründet. Die theoretische und praktische aneignung der Natur, schiesslich das Setzen von Zwecken in d er Natur ist nicht d urch das m onadische Selbst möglich, sondern nur von einem Selb st, das sich als Teil des allgemeinen Selbst weiss." (Hespe 1991, p. 515) In footnote 59 (ibidem.) he comments Hösle: "Es trifft also keineswegs zu, wie Hösle ((1987) 372 u.ö) behauptet, dass Hegel die Einsich t in die Notwendigkeit intersubjektiver Beziehung en nach ihrer Ein führung im weite ren Fortgang sogleich wieder zurücknehme; denn Hegel th ematisiert Intersubjektivität nicht als reaktion zweier Subjekte (nach dem Modell der sog. Ego-alter Dyade), sondern als Vollzug der e inen und e inzi gen Ve rnunf t im e inze lnen Sub jek t , s o d ass a l le wei tere n Entwicklungsstufen des Geiste s qua Formen des al lgemein Selbstbewusstseins eo ipso intersubjektiv sind." I'm claiming that the levels analyzed in the 'Spirit'-subsection are not 'forms' of universal self-consciousness (which is a form of consciousness) any more than forms of any other form of consciousness. 35 since the subject being discussed is as such already intersubjectively mediated.80 But if we follow the interpretative clue about the relation of 'Phenomenology' and 'Psychology' I have suggested, then there is a problem. Namely if the psychological functions of 'representation' or 'passive thinking' discussed in 'Psychology' really are responsible for there being a structured world of objects for consciousness, and since Hegel discusses also a 'pre-intersubjective' form of consciousness, then the functions cannot be effective only on the level of intersubjectively mediated consciousness. Even the form of consciousness analyzed in 'sensuous consciousness' and 'desire' is intentionally related to a structured world of Gegenstände or Vorstellungen. If Hegel really would not say anything about the function of Vorstellung of a purely singular subjectivity, then Hespe would have a point in saying that according to Hegel intersubjectivity is a necessary condition for intentionality as such (see my introduction). But this reading simply does not get Hegel's text right.Already in discussing the 'sensuous consciousness' Hegel talks about the logical determinations of Gegenstände for it as 'thought-determinations' (§ 418-419). The point there simply is, that even for grasping the simple categorial relations given on the singular point of view, the subject has to be passively thinking (i.e. representing) according to these categories. It would be a topic for another study to try to discern, which psychological functions discussed by Hegel are necessarily intersubjectively mediated and which are not. Hegel's point is clearly that any level or function 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 81 For a discussion on Hegel and the modularity-issue see Halbig 1999, pp. 53-69. 82 See § 400, § 401 Z, § 411 Z. 83 § 361 Z: "Man, as the universa l thinking animal[...]"; § 468 Z: "[...] the animal [...] is incapable of having will, because it does not think [...]". 36 of spirit can be affected by the most developed ones,81 but this yet does not imply that there could not be any kind of functioning of the lower functions without the higher ones. Thus, even if at least language (§ 457 Z ff.) obviously presupposes intersubjectivity and therefore also active thinking – by being according to Hegel a linguistic activity – does, this does not imply that there were no passive thinking whatsoever without intersubjectivity and language. Thirdly, the question of the relation of PSS to the discussion on animals in the end of the philosophy of nature is relevant for any work that touches the theme of 'desire' in PSS. On the whole, the fact that desire is discussed both in the philosophy of nature and PSS suggests that for Hegel the boundary between 'nature' and 'spirit' is far from absolute. Another immediately striking evidence for this is the fact that Hegel in many places in the 'Anthropology' points to the commonness of the modes of givenness and functions of the soul in humans and (other) animals. Not only do animals and humans share 'outer sensations' (i.e. sensations of the outer senses), they even share to some extent the 'inner sensations', that is, motivating feelings which direct the practical orientation of an organism in relation to its outer world.82 In discussing the difference between man and animals Hegel points in the traditional way to thinking as the differentia of humans.83 Yet, even here the divide is not necessarily clear-cut. That is, if we hold on to the distinction between the two modes of subjective thinking: 1) the active, or spontaneous thinking and 2) passive thinking (i.e. representation) which is the preconscious activity responsible for there being a structured world of objects for consciousness; then it is plausible to suggest that it is in fact only the spontaneous thinking that other animals lack according to Hegel, and not the passive one. Clearly Hegel thinks that an animal is in intentional relations to outer world which for the animal is distinct from it. There are at least two possible explanations why Hegel thinks that animals do not think actively. One is his theory of the connection of active thinking and language. According to Hegel, active thinking requires language based on purely arbitrary signs with which active thinking can fluently and efficiently operate without the corresponding representations having to 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 84 See especially § 459 and DeVries 1988, pp. 149-153. Because the connection between signs and their meanings is more or less contingen t, the meanings of signs "have to be learned" (§ 457 Z). That is, the meanings of signs are only sociall y instituted, unlike the meanings of 'symbols' which are based on natural associations. Hence, thinking through signs presupposes sociality. 85 Appeal to 'freedom' as the differen tia speci fica of humans does not offer any simple solutions, since any action is according to Hegel motivated. The difference between animals and humans is only on the generality of motivations. Where an an imal has a drive (Trieb) for nourishment, man can have a drive for justice or the good. See § 225, §§ 359-360, § 443 Z, 473 Z. 37 'come to mind'.84 If every word would bring the corresponding representation into consciousness, active thinking would be (at least) hopelessly uneconomical and slow. This is why a language that would be dependent on 'natural symbols' – such as onomatopoetic words or iconic visual symbols – would be inadequate for efficient spontaneous thinking, since (this I take to be Hegel's idea) natural symbols would too easily awake the corresponding representation and slow up the process. Now, evidently Hegel thinks, that animals lack purely arbitrary signs and therefore are unable to spontaneous thinking. Another explanation could be that active thinking is by definition reflective and this at least in some sense presupposes transcending the given perspective, as it were, capability of distancing from one's own perspective so as to 'reflect' it. It is at least very natural to suppose that this requires intersubjectivity – that the recognition of the possible validity of other perspectives is somehow a presupposition for actively reflecting beliefs, conceptions, ends etc held by oneself. It may be then, that animals are not reflective in this sense according to Hegel.85 Be that as it may, this does not imply that animals did not have passive thinking that produces Vorstellungen for them, that is, logically structured correlates of intentions. In fact, in talking about the mental functions responsible for the semantics and syntax of language Hegel points out 'understanding' as the one responsible for syntax. What is interesting is that he in this connection calls understanding a "logical instinct' (logische Instinkt). Should this equation be bypassed just as loosely metaphorical talk by Hegel? I don't see any reason for that. Only if we insist categorically on the strict separation between animals and humans, do we have a reason to bypass it straightaway. I however suggest that Hegel really is saying that the capability to grasp logical connections (in language and in reality) is, not 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 86 "Das Formelle der Sprache [...] ist das Werk des Verstandes, der seine Kategorien in sie einb ildet; dieser logiche Instinkt bringt das Grammatische hervor" (§ 459) [emphasis H.I.]. That Hegel equals this logical instinct with 'understanding' poses for my interpretation a problem. That is: in the 'Phenomenology'-section 'understanding' is the last form of consciousness in the 'Consciousness as such'-subsection, and hence seems to be already a f orm of conscio usness for which the logical structure of the world is no more purely 'first personal' as it is for 'sensuous consciousness'. I am however saying that already animals with (supposedly) purely 'first personal' worldrelation s have th is 'logical instinc t', i.e. 'underst anding '. There is howev er no inconsistency , since the psychological function of 'understanding' (analyzed as such in § 467 in the 'Psychology') is at work in constructing the giv en for a ll levels o f consciousness, that is, not only for the form of consciousness th at Hegel call s 'understanding' in the 'Phenomenology' but already for 'sensuous consc iousness' and 'perception'. This is only to restate that the psychological functions have to be able to function independently of intersubjectivity. In other words: even if the understandable world in the fully developed level of intersubjectively mediated intentionality of 'understanding' is not purely first personally structured, there is also a first personal understandable world brought about by the activity of understanding. 87 Here I think McDowell's verdict (based on Gadamer's – and originally He idegger's – reflectio ns on the 'als'-structure) that animals are not members of the space of reasons is much too simple (see McDowell 1996, pp. 114-126). Recently Alasdair MacIntyre has crit icized McDowell's, Gadamer's and Heidegger's views on animals (in MacIntyre 1999;see especially p . 43 ff.). Studies of developed animals, such as dolphins and chimpanzees, referred by MacIntyre, in fact sugg est that developed an imals can have even some capability of weighing, not only between different means of achieving positively given ends o r 'goods', but also between different short term ends. Does this mean that th ey are capable o f some level of spontaneous thinking? I believe that intersubjective mediation of points of view s is the key for understanding th e appearance of spontaneous thinking – and that the degree of spontaneity goes hand in hand with the degree of transcending the singularity through intersubjectivity. On this theory the differen ces between animals or animal species in this respect would thus correlate with their sociality. However, since Hegel seems not to have fo llowed this line, in this text I simply equate 'animality' with singularity as an interpretation of Hegel's text. 88 Petry III, p. 371, note 45, 6. 38 only pre-linguistic, but also in general a natural, 'instinctual' capability.86 This is then to say, that at least some form of openness to the 'space of reasons' – that is, to conceptual, judgemental and inferential structures of reality, is common to all 'instinctual' animals.87 For example Michael John Petry emphasizes that Hegel's discussion on 'desire' in the 'Phenomenology' "is not to be confused with the animal's instinctive drive to satisfy needs [analyzed in the philosophy of nature]"88. Petry's reason for saying this is that "[t]he exposition of 'desire' [in the 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 89 Idem. 39 'Phenomenology'] is [...] determined solely by the dialectical structuring of consciousness"89. One point to note here is that Petry – perhaps – thinks of 'instinct' as something obviously much too primitive for humans, and hence takes pointing pejoratively to the 'merely instinctual' behavior of animals as a good way of emphasizing the difference between the discussions of desire in the philosophy of nature and that in PSS. Anyway, another point is that it is certainly true that 'desire' is discussed in the 'Phenomenology' only from the very abstract point of view of developing the "dialectical structuring of consciousness". However, this is not to say that the discussion of 'drive' in the philosophy of nature did not relate in any way to the discussion of it in the 'Phenomenology'. On the contrary, I would even say that the beginning of 'Phenomenology', that is, both the 'Desire'-chapter and the 'Sensuous consciousness'chapter, are straightforwardly continuation to the discussion of animal intentionality in the philosophy of nature. 'Anthropology'-section between the philosophy of nature and the 'Phenomenology'-section does not in any way develop the theme of intentionality any further from the level on which it is left in the end of the philosophy of nature. I cannot see that 'sensuous consciousness' and 'desire' were in any way 'higher than animal' levels. There are good reasons then to presume, that in the beginning of the 'Phenomenology' Hegel returns to the discussion of animal intentionality started in the philosophy of nature, and interrupted by 'Anthropology', in order to lead it through the universalization of consciousness to a level that is not anymore 'purely animal'. But claiming that 1) 'consciousness' – on the immediate levels of 'sensuous consciousness' and 'desire' – is nothing more than the animal consciousness already analyzed in the philosophy of nature; and that 2) Gegenständlichkeit or Vorstellung as the mode of givenness peculiar to consciousness presupposes the active processes of producing representations, processes that are analyzed in the 'Psychology'; together lead to the conclusion that 3) the processes analyzed in 'Psychology' are processes that are effective not only on the human level, but also on the animal level analyzed in the philosophy of nature. So be it then. I cannot see that this conclusion would be somehow irreconcilable with Hegel's motives in the Encyclopedia. Again, only if we want to keep the account of animals in the philosophy of nature and the account of subjective spirit strictly separate we have a reason to reject this conclusion. I do not however see any reasons internal to Hegel's system for 1. ON THE ARCHITECTONICS 40 keeping them strictly separate and so propose that we do take this conclusion seriously. The discussion in 'Psychology' does develop themes that are relevant also for the discussion on animals. 90 English does not catch the etymological connection between 'W issen' and 'Bewusstsein' wh ich have to be translated as 'know ledge/knowing' and 'consciousness' respectively. Bewusstsein means roughly 'being in the state of Wissen'; that is, 'to be consc ious of something' equa ls to 'to know of something'. 'Wissen' moreover has to be separated from 'Erkenntnis' which Petry translates as 'cognition'. 91 "Darin, d. h. in dieser Beziehung auf den Gegenstand[...]" (ibid, 217). 41 2. Singular consciousness of the world: s e l fc o n s c io u s n e s s 1 The paragraph 424 of PSS analyzed by Cramer provides a good starting point also for my purposes. The text thus goes: Die Wahrheit des Bewusstseins ist das Selbstbewusstsein, und dieses der Grund von jenem, so dass in de r Existenz alle s Bewusstsein eines anderen Gegenstandes Selbstbewusstsein ist; ich weiss von de m Gegenstan de als dem meinigen (es ist meine Vorstellung), ich weiss daher darin von mir. – Der Ausdruck vom Selbstbewusstsein ist Ich=Ich; – abstrakte Freiheit , reine Idealität. – So ist es ohne Realität; den n es selbst, da s Gegenstand seiner ist, ist nicht ein solcher, da kein Unterschied desselben und seiner vorhanden ist. Cramer interprets Hegel here formulating a position according to which knowing "von dem Gegenstande", implies knowing also of oneself, 'oneself' meaning consciousness.90 This is to say that there is no consciousness of something as different from the consciousness if there is not also consciousness of this consciousness of the Gegenstand as different from the consciousness of the Gegenstand. As I said in the introduction, this is according to Cramer a theory which Hegel presents only to refute it in the last sentence of the paragraph. I do not however think that this is at all what happens in this paragraph. Namely, Cramer's reading relies on a certain interpretation of the word "darin". For Cramer "darin" points to the relation of consciousness to the object and not to the object itself.91 Thus, according to Cramer, Hegel says that I know of myself in (or 'within') consciousness of, or the conscious relation to, the Gegenstand, and not in the Gegenstand itself. This is to say that there are two consciousnesses, both of which exist at the same time ("zugleich", Cramer 1979, 217). Yet, it is easy to see that the claim according to which "darin" pointed to consciousness, that is, to the relation to the object, is without textual evidence. Hegel simply says that "Ich weiss von dem Gegenstande [...] Ich weiss [...] darin von mir". Where else would "darin" refer if not to the "Gegenstand"? Hence, I know of myself in the Gegenstand itself and not 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 92 Again, the suspicion arises, that the method of the Phenomenology of Spirit is being mixed with that of the Encyclopedia. 93 Adrian Peperzak offers (without referring to Cramer) a similar kind of theory containing firstand second order co nsciousnesses as an interpretation for the statemen t "all consciousness is se lf-consc iousness" than Cramer does, but contra Cramer fin ds this theory to be Hegel's own and not something criticized by Hegel! See Peperzak 1990, pp. 294-296. 42 in the consc iousness of the Gegenstand. There are not two consciousnesses, but only one consciousness which is at the same time consciousness of the Gegenstand and consciousness of oneself. One could slightly reformulate Cramer's reading and say that "within it" refers in fact to "representation" ("Vorstellung"). But this changes nothing because the object simply equals to the representation: "Ich weiss von dem Gegenstande [...] (es ist meine Vorstellung) [emphasis. H.I.]". So we have to admit that Hegel really is saying that knowing of a Gegenstand (a Gegenstand which is a Vorstellung) equals to knowing of oneself and conclude that Cramer's interpretation is misguided from the very beginning. Hegel does not speak here of any kind of second order reflective relation involved in a conscious relation to a Gegenstand. If this is so, then at least Hegel is not criticizing here the kind of theory Cramer reads him to be formulating in this paragraph. In fact, I think there are strong grounds to doubt Cramer's claim that Hegel is in general formulating here a theory only to reject it. As far as I can see, this is not his procedure anywhere else in PSS. Why would it be here?92 Cramer does not raise this question. But then we have to consider the possibility that what Hegel is saying here is his own position. This I take actually to be the case. Hegel formulates in § 424 a position according to which consciousness of Gegenstand as such is self-consciousness – and this is Hegel's own position.93 If this is so, what can be Hegel's point of claiming that consciousness is self-consciousness, that being conscious of a Gegenstand is as such being conscious of oneself within the Gegenstand? I think that the point is not after all a very strange one. First of all, we may take a look at what Hegel has said in the transition from Anthropology to Phenomenology, that is, in characterizing the logical development from 'soul' to 'consciousness'. Whereas for (or 'in') the soul the sensations or feelings (whether produced by the five senses, or the system of normative or 'inner sensations') are not yet objectified so as to form an outer world for the subject, consciousness or the 'I' "separates from itself its determinations, the natural life of the soul, as an independent object, and [...] knows of this as external to itself" 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 94 "Die reine abstrakte Freiheit für sich en tlässt ihre Bestimmtheit, des Naturleben der Seele, a ls ebenso frei, als selbstständiges Objekt, aus sich, und vom diesem als ihm äusseren ist es, das Ich zunächst weiss, und so ist Bewusstse in." 95 " [...]Ich weiss von dem Gegenstande als dem mein igen [...]" 96 See §§ 413-415. 97 See DeVries 1988, 120-121. In a case, where a subject takes its representation to be an intuition, but is mistaken (f.ex. hallucinates or simply 'sees wrong') it can be said that the representa t ion fails and is 'only a representat ion' . Also produ cts o f daydreaming o r wishfu l think ing are 'only representat ions'. 43 (§ 413).94 That is, although for consciousness the given is represented before it as an outer world, the sensations still are its sensations and the world given to it in consciousness thus is in this sense its world. In this way "I know of the Gegenstand as mine" (§ 424)95. There is however a deeper point involved, that concerns the logical structure of the object-world of consciousness. Namely, the intentional content of consciousness is always construed by a particular way of 'taking the world as' and hence each 'form' of consciousness analyzed in the 'Phenomenology' is related to intentional correlates peculiar to itself. In other words, Gegenständlichkeit for each form of consciousness implicitly reflects the particular nature of the form of consciousness in question96, that is, the mode of Vor-stellung peculiar to it. Hence: the Gegenstand "ist meine Vorstellung". At first sight it might seem surprizing that Hegel is here in the 'Phenomenology' pointing already to representation (Vorstellung), that is explicitly discussed only in the 'Psychology'. But following the suggestion which I have made according to which 'Psychology' deals with the subjective processes involved in producing objectivity for consciousness, this is understandable. The Gegenstand for consciousness is a representation, produced by the activity of representing, out of the material given in sensations. Now, although Hegel in the 'Theoretical spirit'-subsection of Psychology discusses 'Intuition' (Anschauung) and 'Representation' in two consecutive chapters, this does not mean that the activities of intuiting and representing were independent from each other nor that 'intuitions' and 'representations' were two absolutely different kinds of products. Here I find Willem DeVries's interpretation according to which intuitions are a sub-class of representations to be on the right track.97 Thus by a Gegenstand of consciousness, that is, by Vorstellung Hegel means whatever is constructed in the general process of representation out of sensational material, whether it be a present intuition or just a 'mere representation' of something that is not presently given in outer sensations (so that is merely 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 98 Furthermore, the fact that H egel discusses thinking, o r 'understand ing' only in the end of 'Theoretical sp irit' (§§ 465 -468) do es not mean that 'thinking' were not operative in the process of representing objects. Passive thinking and the general process of representing are the same thing. 99 Findlay 1979, p. 14. 100 'In principle' because McDowell in the end doesn 't want to discuss the ontological implications with which Hegel has no hesitations. As I see it, Mc Dowe ll's talk of the world as given in intuitions in the end leave it open whethe r he really means to say that the world as such , irrespectively of ways of intuiting it has a conceptual structure. 44 'in the head'; see previous chapter). What ever is given for consciousness is a representation in this general sense.98 It is not necessary to discuss all the issues involved in the production of representations that Hegel analysis in the Psychology, but only point out a general truth that seems to apply generally for the process of representing as constituting objectivity for the subject. John Findlay has characterized Hegel's relation to Kant in the following way: "What Hegel did was to identify Kant's ego with the logical idea, the supreme source of the categories, and to hold that while it might be specified and individualized in the psychological ego, it could also be specified in an externalized form in nature."99 Now, something like this certainly is true of Hegel's ontology and epistemology on a very general level. In comparison to Kant, for Hegel the logical forms of thinking and experiencing are not merely subjective but are realized both in experience and thinking and in the world as it is independently of subjects. This is the picture of the conceptual having no outer limit which McDowell – at least in principle – symphatizes in Hegel.100 Yet, if we understand this meaning that empirical subjects are for Hegel simply instantiations of the one absolute structure, we are still very far from how Hegel really accounts for the epistemic openness of empirical subjects to the world. Namely, for Hegel the representing activity responsible for there being a world for consciousness is not in any way reducible to an activity of a 'pure' transcendental subjectivity, of a subjectivity that itself would be totally independent from all empirical relations and determinations. The activity through which a structured objectivity as the intentional correlate of the subject (or consciousness) is produced, is according to Hegel on the contrary an activity of a "concrete subjectivity (§ 456) and as such affected by the particular practical interests and deter2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 101 Hegel speaks ab out the 'concrete subject, I or individuality' in the 'Anthropology' at least in § 398, § 400, § 402 Zusatz, § 405 and § 406. In all cases he is emphasizing the concreteness of th e sub jects theoretical and practical orientatio n, that is, its dependence on the totality of the subjects motivational set which is determined by lifehistory, doxastic history, past and present human-relations etc. 102 An interesting monograph emphas izing the herme neutical aspect in H egel's philosophy in Redding 1996. 103 "Auch d ie Assoziation der Vorste llungen ist d aher als Subsumption der einzelnen unter eine allgemeine, welche deren Zusammmenhang ausmacht , zu fassen. Die Intelligenz ist aber an ihr n icht nur allgemeine Form, sondern ihre Innerlichke it ist in sich bestimmte, konkrete Subjektivität von eigenem Gehalt, der aus irgeneinem Interesse, ansichseienden Begri ffe oder Idee stammt, insofern von solchem Inhalte antizipierend gesprochen werden kann. Die Intelligenz ist die Macht über den Vorrat der ih r angehör igen Bi lder und Vorste l lungen und so $$ ) f r e i e s Verknüpfen und Subsumieren dieses Vorrats unter den ihr e igentümlichen Inhalt. [...]" 45 minations of the subject's being in the world.101 We are according to Hegel conscious of the world always in ways that are, if not completely determined, in any case motivated by our being and acting in the world as 'concrete subjectivities'. This emphasis on 'cocreteness' in the production of the subjects intentional world-relation can clearly be seen as a pragmatic or hermeneutical move in relation to Kant's strict dualism between the transcendental and the empirical subject.102 In § 456 Hegel analyzes the function of organizing objectivity for consciousness as subsuming (or judging) individuals under universals in the following way: The association of representat ions is [...] to be grasped as a subsumption of singulars under a universal which constitutes thei r connection . Intelligence i s however [...] not only a general form, for its inwardness is in itself determin ed, concrete subjectivity, with its own content deriving from some interest, [...] concept or idea. Intelligence is the power over the fund of images and representations belonging to it and thus a free relating and subsumation of this fund under the content peculiar to itself.103 Hegel talks here about the association or subsumption of singulars given in intuition under universals as the activity of intelligence as "determined, concrete subjectivity". The "representations" which are being associated by subsuming them under universals that are common to many representations are "images" (Bilder), by which Hegel means representations of singulars with many features or properties. Since these singulars have many different features, they are already judgementally articulated, but precisely because of having many features, they provide a multitude of possibilities for subsuming. The universal under which the singulars is subsumed or 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 46 judged can in principle be any feature that the thing shares with other things. In this sense intelligence is "a free relating and subsumation" of singulars. In the Zusatz to § 456 Hegel talks of this associating of individuals as "paying attention" (aufmerken), and gives some examples of the features that can function as the basis of subsumation: The common feature is either some particular aspect of the ob ject elevated into the form of universality , such as for example the red co lour of a rose; or the concrete universal, the genus, for example in the case of a rose 'the plant ' [...] Now, what is the feature of the individual to which attention is payed obviously depends on the "content peculiar [to the intelligence, H.I.]" (§ 456), that is, on what kind of concepts the subject in question happens to possess. It may be that I do not have the concept of a rose, and perhaps I do not even have the concept of a plant, yet what I see, has at least many sensible features and some of them are features that are also had by other objects which I see or have seen. The forms of consciousness analyzed in the 'Phenomenology' are in this sense different types of consciousness: different types of universals are available for them and thus subsuming singulars under universals is different in the case of each type. Another important point is that according to § 456 the subsumation is, or can be, related to an "interest". Hence, my attending to some feature of a given individual is not without motivation, but is motivated by some interest. Also here we may discern different types of consciousness depending on the corresponding types of interest. What ever is the interest of my 'concrete subjectivity' which directs my attention to features that are 'interesting', it determines the logical structure of my intentional correlates. I am actually conscious of the world as organized by my interest-related subsuming activity. That is, the space of my actual correlates of intentions is more limited than that of my possible correlates of intentions. It is in this sense that Gegenstände are our Vorstellungen and hence we are in being conscious of the world as organized by our representative activity implicitly conscious of 'ourselves'. Hence "consciousness as such is self-consciousness". Now we may return to the last sentence of § 424 in the 'selfconsciousness'-subsection. Why does Hegel say there that self-consciousness in this picture is "without reality"? What is the problem that Hegel is pointing at by saying that in fact in this structure "no difference between it [i.e. the Gegenstand] and itself [i.e. consciousness] is present"? The problem is not – as Cramer maintains – that this structure were self-contradictory in such a way that in fact in it no Gegenstand could be given as a 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 47 Gegenstand and that the structure sketched in § 424 were hence simply an unsuccessful theory of consciousness. Rather, the problem is, that consciousness as characterized in § 424 is still an immediate or singular consciousness, and as such does not yet contain any consciousness of the fact that it is a particularly 'coloured' way of taking as. That is, the question of whether an object could perhaps also be 'taken' in another way than it is actually taken is not present for the singular or immediate consciousness as self-consciousness because it does not contain knowledge of the fact that the Gegenstand is a product of a particularly coloured representational activity. This Hegel states explicitly in the Zusatz of § 424: This [...] unity of I and object is however present in the immedia te self-consciousness only in an abstract manner, and is cognized only by us who examine it, and not by self-consciousness itself. Thus, the "unity of I and object", that is, the fact that the object is for the subject or 'I' given as a result of its own representative activity is in the case of "immediate" self-consciousness only "present in" it "in an abstract manner", but not yet cognized by self-consciousness itself. Or, to put it another way, on the immediate level consciousness is not yet self-consciousness for itself, but only for us who analyze its structure. This is the meaning of Hegel's statement "it [i.e. self-consciousness] is without reality". Hence it could be said that something like the reflective structure that Cramer understands Hegel to be formulating in § 424 (according to Cramer for no other reason than to refute it) is precisely lacking at this stage. Only when something like an explicit reflective awareness of the particularity of representing the world is reached, will the 'lack of reality' of self-consciousness be overcome. From now on I will call this immediate or singular (self-) consciousness "without reality" self-consciousness1 to separate it from other meanings of self-consciousness in PSS. Now, both 'sensuous consciousness' and 'desire' are clearly immediate, or singular modes of consciousness that have as their actual intentional correlates only those kinds of contents that are peculiar to the individual point of view. I will next go on reading the chapters on 'sensuous consciousness' and 'desire' as forms, or more exactly as aspects of the singular selfconsciousness1. After that I will consider the difference of 'Gegenstand' and Objekt' as reflecting the difference between the immediate consciousness as self-consciousness1 and the mediated forms of consciousness as self-consciousness. 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 104 "Das Bewusstse in ist zunächst das unmitte lbare, seine Beziehung auf den Gegenstand daher die einfache, unvermittelte Gewissheit desselben; der Gegenstand selbst ist daher ebenso als unmittelbarer, als seiender und in sich reflektierter, weiter als unmittelb arer einzelner bestimmt; – sinnliches Bewusstsein. Das Bewusstsein a ls Verhäl tnis enthält nur die dem abstrakten Ich oder formellen Denken an gehörigen K ategorien, die ihm B estimmungen des Objekts sind (§ 415). Das sinnliche Bew usstsein weiss dahe r von diesem nur als einem Seienden, Etwas, existierenden Dinge, Einzelnen und so fort. Es erscheint als das reichste an inhalt, ist ab er das ärmste an Gedanken. Jene reiche Erfüllung machen die Gefühlsbestimmungen aus [...]" 48 2.1. 'Sensuous consciousness' In § 418 Hegel describes the immediate form of 'consciousness as such', that is 'sensuous consciousness' in the following way: Consciousness is initially immediate, its relation to the Gegenstand therefore the simple, immediate c ertainty of it; the Geg enstand itself is therefore sim ilarly determined as immediate [...] as immediately singular. [...] Sensuous consciousness kn ows o f this [i .e. its Gegenstand] as having being, as something, as a n existing thing , as singu lar and so on. [...] This rich content [of sensuous consciousness] consist of determinations of feeling.104 Hegel here draws an abstract picture of what is given for a purely immediate consciousness, that is, specifying the categorial structures of the intentional correlate of a purely 'first personal' perspective. Unlike in the soul, for consciousness the given is already given as a singular existing being, as something. In § 419 Hegel follows the development from 'something' (Etwas) to 'thing' (Ding) presented in his logic: "The sensuous as something becomes another; the reflection of something to itself, thing, has many properties [...]". Now this clearly is a place where the logic is being 'applied' in Realphilosophy. However, merely pointing to the categories of logic does not yet say much about the specific phenomenological point of those categories. What is the point in this case then? According to § 125 of the Encyclopedia logic 'something' is immediately determined by some quality and as such is an existing quality, whereas a 'thing' has many properties and as such is not thoroughly determined by any one of them. In fact already on the level of soul, sensations are 'etwas', that is, any sensation is a felt quality and as such distinct from others sensations. This is also true in consciousness, since in principle anything is given also for consciousness 'as something', that is, as qualified. Yet, that anything for consciousness is given as 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 105 In the Jena Phenomenology of Spiri t of 1807 Hegel gives a grain of salt as an example: it is both 'salty' and 'white' and 'cubical' and hence it is not any of its qualities, but has a number of them (see PS, §§ 113-120). 106 The Lockean distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary' qualities is not helpful in describing the purely phenomenal point of view of sensuous consciousness, since for example both shape (as a primary quality) and colour (as a secondary quality) are equally given for sensuous consciousness. Hegel does not seem to pay any attention to the primary/secondary-distinction in his treatments of the senses e ither. See § 358, § 401, § 448 Z. 107 Hegel's example is "the rose is red" (§ 172). This example however already contains judging X under the genus of rose which is what Hegel calls a 'judgement of necessity' (§ 177). A pure example o f a qualitat ive judgement w ould be "X (or that) is red". 108 See Hespe 1991, p. 516. 49 something, i.e. as qualified, says only a very abstract truth. Namely, any ordinary object has not only one but many qualities and can (usually) be sensed with more than one sense. Thus they are already in a purely first personal level 'things with many properties'.105 This is the truth of sensual objects that are the intentional correlate(s) of sensuous consciousness: they provide a multitude of possible ways of 'taking as' and hence a number of possible ways of classification. In principle I can order the whole material world according to any sensual universals such as for example colour, the quality of taste, smell etc., and hence in principle there is no limit to the number of possible purely individual taxonomies, that is, of systems of 'taking as'.106 It is now clear that already on this immediate point of view the given for consciousness is judgementally articulated. More exactly, it is articulated according to what Hegel in his logic calls 'qualitative judgements' (§§ 172173)107. Hence, the psychological activity of representing that is responsible of the production of representations for sensuous consciousness has to be defined (at least) as subsuming individuals under sensual universals, that is, ordering the surrounding world according to sensual classifications. But what about the 'wahrheitsfähigkeit'108 of qualitative judgements. In one sense Hespe is right in saying that according to Hegel purely individual judgements (or thoughts) cannot be 'wahrheitsfähig'. That is, they do not contain truth (Wahrheit) in the ontological sense. In § 172 Hegel points out that it would be a mistake to think that qualitative judgements could contain 'truth' (Wahrheit), because they as such do not concern the thing's essence. However, qualitative judgements can be 'correct' (richtig), that is, they can be correspond or fail to correspond with what really is given. In 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 109 On 'Wahrheit' and 'Richtigkeit' in Hegel see Halbig 1999, chapter 5. 50 the case of sensuous consciousness this is obviously true. At least if we accept one further condition, namely that of 'normal perceptive circumstance', then clearly sensual judgements can be either correct or false: from a distance I may mistakenly take a thing as having the colour X even if it by closer inspection it would prove have the colour Y. Thus although the 'takings as' of sensuous consciousness cannot be true in the strong ontological sense, they can be true, or as Hegel puts it, 'correct' in the everyday correspondence-sense.109 But isn't 'sensuous consciousness' only a very poor abstraction from a real life-form with a singular or first-person perspective. Yes it is and also intended to be since it is a description of only the purely 'theoretical' aspect of singular intentionality or self-consciousness1. As such it does not yet contain any motive for attending to this or that feature of the object or objects, nor for taking these rather than those features of objects as universals for classifications . But as noted before, subsuming objects under universals is according to Hegel in reality an activity of a "concrete subjectivity" having motives or "interests" for its takings as. I think that 'desire' is the answer here. Desiring animals certainly have strong natural 'interest' for attending to some features of the world and not to others. We do not have to assume, that animals in principle were not able to attend to many kinds of features of the world, but only that they have a strong inclination to attend to only those that are relevant for their desires (and fears). Hence, the range of their possible correlates of intentions is open even if they never would encounter anything that would turn their attention from the very limited world of their presently actual intentional correlates. My point is that animals have the world and things in the world as the actual correlates of their intentions 'carved up' by their (more or less) unconscious, interest-directed activity of representing. Still, they are as sensuous beings in principle open to the multitude of features that any object has, a multitude which in principle would 'afford' also other ways of organizing it. In this sense the actual logical space of their intentions is more limited than what is in principle possible for them. What they are actually conscious of, is what interests them. If we take this clue seriously, then its natural to read the chapter on 'desire' as a complement of 'sensuous consciousness' in the 'Phenomenology'. 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 110 "Der theoretische Prozes ist das Freie, Begierdelose der Empfindung, der das Äusere auch bestehen lässt." (Ib idem.) 51 2.2. 'Desire' As I have already claimed, there are no principled reasons not to read the chapter on 'desire' in the 'Self-consciousness'-subsection as closely connected to the discussion on animals in the philosophy of nature. Thus, I will first make an excursion to the philosophy of nature and then return to the 'Self-consciousness'-chapter already discussed in my chapter 2. How does Hegel then characterize the intentionality of a desiring animal? The first point to note there is that according to Hegel sensation (Empfindung) as the differentia of animals as such does give an animal a "theoretical relation to its other" (§ 351 Z)110, a relation which is lacking in plant's whose relation to the environment is "either indifferent of practical" (idem). Yet, Hegel in fact does very little in the way of developing the theoretical aspect of the animal's relation to its environment in the philosophy of nature. Namely, whereas in PSS sensation or feeling as the mode of givenness of 'soul' does not yet contain intentionality because it precedes the Urteil of subject ivity and objectivity, in the philosophy of nature Hegel talks of sensation or feeling as such as an intentional relation to the outer world. Yet, in 'Anthropology' Hegel makes it clear that the primary functions of the soul are common to humans and (other) animals. The two short paragraphs on the animal's 'theoretical relation' (§§ 357-358) to the world deal only with the sensory system and leave undiscussed how a structured world for the animal is constituted out of the products of it's senses. Still, nothing that Hegel says implies that animals were not fully aware of their environment as distinct from their sensations of the environment – even if their point of view might be more limited than that of a fully cultivated human being. There seems to be (at least) three possible explanations for this state of affairs. 1) Humans and animals are for Hegel somehow very different and hence what holds for the theoretical intentionality (i.e. 'Consciousness as such') of humans does not hold for that of animals. Whereas humans need sensations plus the organizing activity of representing for having intentional relations, animals need only sensations. 2) Hegel is simply sloppy and leaves out what he should have said in the philosophy of nature in order to make understandable the theoretical intentionality of animals. 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 111 In fact, the 'inorganic nature' covers all those features of the surround ing world that are necessary for the animals survival and well-being, thus no t only food, but also shelter etc. In this sense it is connected to what H egel calls 'formal assimilation', the example of which is building nests (§ 362). It seems plausible however to limit the direct range of desire only to hunger/thirst-oriented intentionality. Even animal sexuality is a more complex phenomenon than a mere desiring relation to Gegenstände (see § 369). 52 3) The analysis of theoretical intentionality in 'Consciousness as such' – or at least some aspects of it – holds for animals as well. I suggest that the most fruitful answer is the third. If much of the discussion of the soul is meant to hold for both humans and (other) animals, and since obviously in the chapter on desire Hegel goes on with the discussion started already in the philosophy of nature, then it is quite plausible to read at least the chapter on 'sensuous consciousness' also dealing with a level of consciousness that is common to humans and animals. The implications of this are not after all so very radical: animals have a 'sensuous consciousness', that is, they are at least conscious of things with sensuous properties. But what about the practical aspect of animal-intentionality? First of all, the relation of an animal, or "a desiring organism" (§ 363 Z), to its environment is largely determined by its needs for survival. According to § 359 an animal's "practical relation to nature" has its origin in the "feeling on lack". The animal feels that it needs something from the world outside itself. It is hungry. It also has a "drive" to overcome this lack, that is, a drive to be nourished. Nourishment hence is the immediate "end" (§ 360) which the animal attempts to attain. The "need is determined" (idem), that is, the need is determined by the particular physiological constitution of the animal: different animals need different nutriments. The animal also has an "instinct" (idem) with which it is able to attain the end – to find something that nourishes it, fulfills its need. According to § 361 Z "every animal has only a limited sphere as its inorganic nature [...] which it has to find from its complex environment by its instinct". By "inorganic nature" Hegel means that part of nature that is not the individual animal's own organism, but which however is "its [...] nature [emphasis H.I.]" in the sense that it and only it can nourish the particularly constituted organism of this animal.111 How far does then the practical aspect of an animal's relation to the world determine the contents of its intentions as a whole according to Hegel? At first sight to a very large extent. Namely, in the Zusatz to § 361 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 112 "[...] alles Übrige aber für es gar nicht vorhanden ist [... ]" 113 "Dieses Einlassen mit dem Äusseren, die Erregung und der Prozess selbst, hat aber gegen die Allgemeinheit und einfache Beziehung des Lebendigen auf sich gleichfalls die Bestimmung der Äusserlichkeit; dies Einlassen selbst macht also eigentlich das Objekt und das Negativen gegen die Subjektivität des Organismus aus, das er zu überwinden und zu verdauen hat." 53 just quoted Hegel seems to take the extreme position according to which nothing other than features of the world relevant to the animal's needs are not even present for it.112 This radical exclusiveness of the realm of intentional correlates of a desiring animal also seems to be stressed in § 365 where Hegel says that the particular determinatedness of the needs of an animal, which directs its "involvement" (einlassen) with the outer world, "actually constitutes the object" for the animal.113 This looks like a very radically version indeed of self-consciousness1. It would seem, that the consciousness of an animal is 'closed' to such an extent that it is not conscious of anything other than that which it needs, so that it has as its intentional correlates only what it needs. However, this cannot be quite the case. Namely, already the reference to the necessity for the animal to "find" the "inorganic nature" from "its complex environment" suggests that the animal is intentionally related also to features of the world that are not "its inorganic nature" (§ 361 Z). And after all, Hegel has said that sensations as such give the animal also a 'theoretical' relation to the world. This seems to accord with common sense: certainly an animal can discern what it desires from what it does not desire and certainly it has the ability to actively look for food among things that it knows not to be food for it. And certainly many kinds of sensuous qualities of the environment are relevant in this search. Thus an animal has to be conscious also of other things than those that are the object of its need. But how can then the following two claims be understood as compatible: 1) the need constitutes the object for the animal and thus nothing else than what satisfies the animals needs is not present to the animal; and 2) through its sense the animal 'sensates' 'theoretically' also other features of the world than those directly satisfying its needs, and so is 'looking for' nourishment from a world that for it contains also features or things that it does not desire? Is Hegel simply contradicting himself, or is there a possible way out with the means that his conceptual apparatus provides? I propose that the way out is to be found from a passage that I have already referred – that is, 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 114 The precise nature of the qualia of different animals with different sensory systems doesn't affect this general po int. 115 The prec ise details of the taxonomies implicit in the practical orientation of different animals can of course only be imagined. The point is only, that any animal needs some taxonomy. 54 from § 456 of the 'Psychology' where Hegel discusses the subsumption of singulars under universals as an activity directed by the "interest" of a "concrete subjectivity". According to the Zusatz to § 456 subsumation of singulars under universals happens when the subject attends to common features of what is given for it. It is this attention that is directed by interest. Now, desire for the needs for survival certainly provides an animal with a strong interest for paying attention to those features of the world that are relevant for satisfying its desire. On the most general level, an animal has an immediate interest for discerning the very general classes of 'satisfying' and 'non-satisfying' objects from each other. Also, most living animals have natural enemies and all of them have other dangers they have to be able to discern from the environment. Sensory systems vary from species to species and thus the qualitative features of the world to which animals are sensitive also varies . Yet all animals have some sensations and therefore are open to different sensational qualities – that is, they have a 'theoretical' relation to the world.114 What ever the necessary psychological processes might be, animals obviously are able to associate certain sensational features to the classes of the desirable and non-desirable.115 And what ever are then the sensational features that are most practical for discerning the eatable, noneatable, dangerous etc. things from each other in a complex natural environment, those features most probably are the features to which an animals attention is mostly directed. And if the sensory system of an animal is complex enough, it is able to use different sensuous qualities as information that serves its purposes: a scarecrow on a strawberry-field that only has the shape of a hawk may keep fieldfare out of the field for a while but probably not for a very long time. If the scarecrow is also made to move and perhaps even sound like a hawk, then the strawberries are more likely to be left alone by the fieldfare. This shows that fieldfare 'know' hawks as something to be avoided and having certain sensuous properties, neither of which alone is a hawk. Hence, something in the fieldfare's conceptual system (or the logical (sub-)space of its actual intentionality) roughly corresponds to what 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 116 'Roughly', since the logical (sub-)spaces of the actual intentionality of a cultivated homo sapiens and that o f the fieldfare are of course very different and hence the meaning of any thing or class of things for them are very different too. Yet, both humans and fieldfare l ive in one and the same world or logical space an d are someth ing l ike a hawk be longs to the furniture of the sub-spaces o f actua l intent ionality of bo th of them. 117 But here the question arises: doesn't this mean that the fieldfare spontaneously judge that something w ith only the shape of a haw k but with out othe r characteristic s of a hawk is not d angerous? That is : a purely passive relation to the space of reasons, without the capability for entertaining spontaneous think ing is clearly impossible. If we adopt Hegel's position according to which the spo ntaneous thinking of human s operates with arbitrary signs, perhaps we should nevertheless leave open the possibility that some form or level of spontaneous thinking is possible also without arbitrary signs (supposing that animals do not have arbitrary signs). How far would this then lead in the way of tak ing animals as members in the space of reasons...? 55 we call a hawk.116 And this something has for the fieldfare both certain practical properties (such as 'to be avoided') and theoretical, sensuous properties (certain shape, colour, way of moving, sound etc.). This obviously means that the practical aspect of intentionality and the theoretical have to form one whole in order for the animal to be able to orientate in the world. We might ask, what do animals – such as fieldfare – lack then in relation to humans. It is hard to resist saying that the world as the intentional correlate for fieldfare – as for all animal-subjects – is conceptually, judgementally and inferentially structured. How else would they find what they need and how else would they learn from experience (for example not to avoid something that merely has the shape of a hawk)? And does someone want to deny that animals can make mistakes in their tokens of subsumation? Surely the fieldfare are mistaken if they take a scarecrow as a hawk and surely they correct the mistake when they learn that it isn't.117 But are fieldfare conscious of anything else than what is immediately relevant for their practical, desiring being in the world, things like worms, strawberries, hawks and their sensuous properties? This leads back to what I earlier called the actual and possible intentional correlates of consciousness. My suggestion is that the more strongly attention is directed by immediate concerns or 'interests' the more closed is the space of actual intentional correlates. The fieldfare are actually conscious of the world as it is structured by their desire-directed activity of representing. This however does not in principle rule out the possibility that a strong enough new motivation would turn attention to features of the world that so far were 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 118 Redding 1996, p. 105, n. 8. 119 Ibidem., n. 9. 120 Idem. 56 not explicitly known, and that hence new ways of organizing the given would arise. This is an important point to bear in mind, when we try to understand how is it possible for the singular self-consciousness1 to transcend its singularity and arise onto the levels of what I will later call selfconsciousness2 and self-consciousness3. Paul Redding has illustratively characterized the intentional correlates of a singular desiring subjectivity as "object[s] that [...] merely [...] fill a logical space constituted by the [desiring] self"118. In this logical space "an object will only count in terms of its capacity to satisfy [...] hunger"119. What is interesting and important in Redding's formulations is, that he emphasizes that the world-relat ion even of a purely singular desiring subject is a logical space and that hence at least in some sense even a purely singular desiring subject already is a member of what McDowell and Brandom call the space of concepts or reasons. I would only like to make a further specification to Redding's idea. Namely, what Redding has in mind is "a purely practical intentional subject"120. My point is that the 'pureness' of the practicality is never absolute in the case of real subjects. The simple existence of senses gives an openness to also features of the world that are not immediately relevant for the satisfaction of needs. It is only that a limited range of interest (such as the mere satisfaction of desire) limits attention to correspondingly limited range of features of the world and hence limits the sphere of actual intentional correlates of consciousness. In this sense, desire – as any practical interest – does not construct a selfsufficient singular logical space, but only limits a sphere from the overall logical space of the world as a sphere to which the 'interested' subject mostly relates to. Desire does not constitute a closed world of its own, but, as it were, illuminates the one and only world from a certain angle and with a certain colouring. This is also compatible with conceptualizing understanding as a 'logical instinct' (§ 459). Understanding as a capability for grasping the logical structure of the world is 'instinctual' in the sense that it is closely connected to the practical needs and interest of the understanding subject. It seems that it is after all only a quantitative difference in the range of 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 121 ...or cultivated humans such as botanists from 'savages' (see § 448 Z). It is sobering to remem ber that th e range o f interest an d thus the range of actual correlates o f intentions (i.e. Gegenständlichke it for consciousness) varies considerably also among humans. The horizons of a Goe the and th at of some one wh o has to fight for her survival from the first day of her life until the very last are probably – and yet with no conceptual necessity – very differently focused. 122 "Das abstrakte Selbstbewusstsein ist die erste Negation des Bewusstseins, daher auch behaftet m it einem äusserliche n Obje kt, formell m it negatio n seiner; es ist somit zugleich die vorhergehende Stufe, Bewusstsein, und ist der Widerspruch seiner als Selbstbewusstseins und seiner als Bewusstseins.Indem lezte res und die Nega tion überhaupt im Ich=Ich an sich sc hon aufg ehoben ist, so ist es a ls diese Gewissheit seiner selbst g egen da s Objekt der Trieb, das zu setzen, was es an sich ist, -d.i. dem abstrakten Wissen von sich Inhalt und Objektivität geben und umgekehrt sich von seiner Sinnlichkeit zu b efreien, die gegeb ene Objektivität aufzuh eben und m it sich identisch zu setzen; b eides ist ein und dasselbe; – die Ident i f i zie rung se ines Bewusstseins und Selbstbewusstseins." 57 interest and hence in the range of their actual understanding of the one and only world that separates animals from humans.121 * * * * * Now its time to return to the reading of Hegel's 'self-consciousness'chapter that I started in chapter 2 of this work. In paragraph 425 Hegel goes on to characterize more closely the form of self-consciousness still "without reality"(which he now calls 'abstract self-consciousness') that was the topic of § 424. This is hence what I have named self-consciousness1. Abstract self-consciousness is the first negation of consciousness, and for that reason it is burdened with an external Objekt, formally with its own negation. Thus it is at the same time the antecedent stage, consciousn ess, and it is the contradiction of itself as self-consciousness and as consciousness. Since the latter [i.e. consciousness] and the negation in general is in I = I implicitly sublated, it is as this certitude of itself against the object the drive to realize what it is implicitly, – that is, to give content and objectivity to the abstract knowledge of itself, and in the other direction to free itself from its sensuousness, to sublate the given objectivity and posit it as identical with itself. Both are one an d the same, the identif ication of its consciousness and self-consciousness.122 What is striking here is that whereas in § 424 the 'otherness' of the Gegenstand seems to have vanished (because the Gegenstand is nothing else than what it is taken to be), in § 425 Hegel talks suddenly of some kind of tension between self-consciousness and "an external Objekt" with which "it is burdened". Because of this tension self-consciousness is a 'drive' (Trieb) to become "what it is implicitly, that is, to give [...] objectivity 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 123 Where Hegel in PSS discusses theories of his predecessors and contemporaries that he rejects, he does it by explicitly naming whom he is talking about. This does not of course mean that his own argumentation could not implicitly contain criticism of other theories. How ever, acco rding to C ramer's interp retation § 4 24 in fact se rves no purpose in Hegel's own argumentation. 124 " [...] abstrakte Fre iheit, reine Idealität.[...] ohne Realität [...]" 58 to the abstract knowledge of itself" and on the other hand "to sublate the given objectivity and posit it as identical with itself". This drive has as its goal "the identification of consciousness and self-consciousness". But where comes this need for an activity to realize the identity of consciousness and self-consciousness? Wasn't consciousness as such already selfconsciousness according to § 424? Is Cramer perhaps after all right in saying that in § 424 Hegel outlines a theory which he simply rejects? Then § 425 would be a formulation of another theory. No. Again I want to emphasize that if this would turn out to be the case, it would be highly unusual in the context of PSS where the whole point is to analyze real moments or levels of a real individual subjectivity and not to discuss this and that rival theory only to reject them.123 § 425 is continuation to the discussion of § 424 and only adds further features to the preliminary discussion of consciousness as self-consciousness in § 424. Before explicating what I think the point involved to be, its important to discuss one more candidate for a reading of the relation of § 424 and §425. That is: what if Hegel is in § 424 formulating the goal which selfconsciousness in § 425 begins to strive for as drive? This reading would be understandable in connection to the very broad meaning that 'drive' for Hegel has. Namely, the purely animal drive discussed in the philosophy of nature is only one and as such a very limited form of drive. In the Encyclopedia logic Hegel speaks of the drives towards "the good" and "the true" (§ 225). And again in § 443Z of the 'Psychology' Hegel characterizes 'theoretical spirit' (or the activity of theoretical spirit) as "drive for knowledge" (Trieb des Wissens). In general, Hegel seems to call any goal-directed activity 'drive'. Now, it could be proposed that the I=I of § 424 points to the end of the whole philosophy of spirit as absolute knowledge which obviously in some sense is knowledge of something that is not anymore 'other' to the knowing of it. Hence it would be the absolute as subject-substance that is referred to in § 424 – and the general activity of spirit to achieve this end that is discussed in § 425. However, this reading is also a failure: it could not explain what is the defect pointed at in the last sentence of § 424.124 Surely the absolute as the fulfillment of all the developmental levels of the 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 59 Realphilosophie is not for Hegel anything "abstract" and "without reality". Thus Hegel has to be sketching in § 424 a form that in some sense really is I=I, that is consciousness as such as self-consciousness, but in another sense is still defective. My suggestion was and is, that the defect of self-consciousness as analyzed in § 424 is precisely that it is only self-consciousness1 – a form of singular or immediate consciousness for which the world is limited by its singular way of 'taking as', a way that is still limited or directed by the given range of the practical interests of the singular concrete living subject, without consciousness of the fact that it is a particularly limited way of 'taking as'. In § 425 Hegel then goes on to note that in fact the world is also something else than what the singular desiring subject takes it to be. The singular subject is familiar with the world still only to a very limited extent and in this sense it is still "burdened with an external Objekt". It is as if the possible correlates of intentions were dimly looming in the periphery of the singular subject's actual intentions. As cultivated humans we are all aware of this feature of our world-relation in our lives: I always have certain focused and as such restricted ways of taking the world and again and again I learn that the world is in fact more complicated and contains more features than the ones I have been attentive so far. The more limited is the range of my practical interests and the more limited accordingly is my grasp of the rich texture of the world, the more is there to learn from the world. Even if I thought to be absolutely familiar with the structure of the world around me, it may turn out that the world in fact contains something 'other' than I thought, something 'external' to my so far actual intentions. A singular and immediate subjectivity is in this sense implicitly "burdened" with a lot of features of the world that it is not familiar with in its actual intentions. There are two points to note. First, the features that are "external" to my actual intentions have to be implicitly present as possible intentional correlates. This is just to say, that they have to be something which I can in principle become conscious of if they somehow manage to catch my attention. Secondly, since it is my interests that focuses my attention, then in order for those features to catch my attention they have to be somehow 'interesting' to me. They have to be something relevant to my concerns as a 'concrete subjectivity'. Yet, at first sight it seems that in talking about the drives for "truth" (§ 225) and "knowledge" (§ 443 Z) Hegel were simply taking for granted that there is some metaphysical power behind individual 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 125 "Das Selbstbew usstsein in seiner Unm ittelbarkeit ist Einzelnes und Begierde, – der Widerspruch seiner Abstraktion, welche objektiv sein soll, oder seiner Unmittelbarkeit, welche die Gestalt eines äusseren Objekts hat und subjektiv sein soll. Für die aus dem Aufheben des Bewusstseins hervo rgegengene Gewissheit sein er selbst ist das Objekt und für die Beziehung des Selbstbewusstseins auf das Objekt ist seine abstrakte Idealität ebenso als Nichtiges bestimmt." 60 subjects driving them to make what was previously unknown known (let's say, a mystical List der Vernunft) and that no further account was needed in the individual level. This is way too simple. The account of the broadening of the singular perspective in the 'Self-consciousness'-chapter is a very pragmatic one and is easily understandable without any extravagant metaphysical postulates. This account is the general epistemological point of the chapters on 'Desire' and 'Recognitive self-consciousness' in the 'Selfconsciousness'-subsection. Let's go then to § 426 which is the first paragraph of the chapter on 'Desire'. The text of the paragraph goes: Self-consciousness in its immediacy is a singular and desire, – the contradiction of its abstraction which ought to be objec tive, or its immediacy which has the form of an exte rnal objec t and ought to be sub jective. For the certitude of oneself , which has issued from the sublation o f mere consciousne ss, the object is null; and for the relation of self-consciousness to the object its abstract ideality is equally determined as null.125 What is here striking is that whereas in § 424 the object was lost and in § 425 it returned as that with which the self-consciousness was "burdened", here again for the self-consciousness as 'desire' the object is determined as "null". First we have to understand what is the relation of 'drive' and 'desire'. Hegel is not very openhanded in helping his readers on this issue. The only explicit discussion on this relation that I know is to be found in the Zusatz to § 473 where Hegel separates 'desire' and 'drive' by saying that whereas desire is something "singular"and yearns only to be fulfilled by something singular, that is, it looks only for "momentary satisfaction"; drive on the other hand is oriented to "a series of satisfactions". By drive Hegel means here however only the 'practical drive' towards practical ends and does not discuss the theoretical drive. Anyhow, the point seems to be that desire is simply more limited as to the generality or range of its 'ought' than the practical drive. To be precise, desire is a very primitive form of practical drive and in § 473Z Hegel simply compares desire as a very limited form of practical drive to a form that is more extensive as to the range of satisfactions to which it is directed. 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 126 "(Z.B. nützlich, gefärhrlich; Schwere, Säure, – dann Trieb usf.)" Hegel is not much more genero us in the Science of Logic: "The fol lowing may therefore serve as examples of judgements of reflection: man is mortal, things are perishable, this thing is useful, harmful; hardness, elasticity of bodies, happiness, etc. are predicates of this peculiar kind." (SL, 643) 61 The whole chapter on desire (§§ 426-429) now discusses this singular practical world-relation from the point of view of how for it its object is nothing other than what the desiring subject takes it to be. Thus whereas in 'sensuous consciousness' the object had sensuous properties, here it has practical properties for the subject. Here we may take a look at a clue Hegel gives in the chapter on judgements in the Encyclopedia logic (§§ 166-180) that I already referred to in relation to 'sensuous consciousness'. There Hegel divides the forms of judgements into four types: 1) 'the qualitative judgement' which means judging something under a sensory quality or property; 2) 'the judgement of reflection' which means judging something under a relational property; 3) 'the judgement of necessity' which means judging something under a genus; and 4) 'the judgement of concept', that is, judging something as to whether it corresponds to its concept, i.e. whether it is true (Wahr) in the ontological sense. Whereas the qualitative judgement is the form proper to 'sensuous consciousness', the judgement of reflection is now of special interest in relation to desire. Hegel is very frugal in giving examples of judgements of reflection – only in passing and in brackets he gives the following: "(For example useful, dangerous; weight, acidity; then drive and so on.)" (§ 174).126 At first sight it is hard to understand what is 'drive' doing here among examples of reflective, i.e. relational, judgements. Does Hegel say that drive is a relational property of something or is he perhaps saying that drive is somehow a relational judgement? I suggest that he is saying the latter. The puzzling presence of drive among examples of judgements of reflection receives a bit more light when we read § 473 in the chapter 'Drives and willfullness' ('Triebe und Willkür') in 'Psychology'. There Hegel states that "[t]he practical ought is a real judgement." By 'practical ought' Hegel refers here to the content of a practical drive, that is, to what ever it is that the drive is directed to, what it is to actualize. It is of course generally true that judgement (as well as concept and syllogism) for Hegel is not only a form of thinking but also a form of being. Thus all things are judgementally structured and so in principle anything is 'a real judgement'. However, by combining the characterization of 'drive' as a reflective judgement and the characterization of the 'ought' as the content of a practical drive as 'a real 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 127 "Das Selbstbewusstsein weiss sich daher an sich im Gegenstand, der in dieser Beziehung dem Triebe gemäss ist." 62 judgement' we come closer to answering in what specific sense drive is a judgement. My proposal is that drive in general is judging or 'taking' something as on object of pursuit. Desire then as the primitive, purely singular form of practical drive is the form (or aspect) of consciousness for which Gegenstände have only properties such as 'satisfying me', 'not satisfying me' etc. Hence its actual intentional correlates are purely, as it were, desire-centered. However, since any object certainly is also something else than simply desirable, since the desiring consciousness only takes its objects as what they are in relation to the particularities of desire, there is a tension between the desiring subject and the object. The object is, as it were, reduced to only what it is from the "singular"perspective of desire, and as such it is, as Hegel puts it in § 427 "in accordance with the drive": "Thus self-consciousness implicitly knows itself in a Gegenstand, which in this relation is in accordance with the drive".127 It is then precisely this purely egocentric practical 'taking as' of objects which determines objects as null, since it leaves, or more exactly tries not to leave any say to what the objects would be in addition to what they are from the desiring point of view. This is the deficiency of self-consciousness1, which however already in the practical desiring relation to objectivity is on the verge of transcending itself and arising onto the levels of what I will later call self-consciousness2 and self-consciousness3. If we now combine the 'theoretical' aspect of singular intentionality analyzed in 'Sensuous consciousness' and the 'practical' aspect of intentionality analyzed in 'Desire', we have a full picture of a the world of a purely singular "concrete subjectivity" that according to § 456 subsumes individuals under universals according to its interests. Here the 'interest' is that of 'desire'. This concrete living form of animal subjectivity has as its actual intentional correlate an object-world that is subsumed under universals that are relevant for its survival. Now, even if all that counts for this individual animal subjectivity in objects is their desirability for its immediate needs for survival, the animal certainly has to able to be responsive already to a quite complicated conceptual, judgemental and inferential structures between the ends determined by its drive or desire, means of achieving the ends, sensuous properties of objects that satisfy the desire and those that do not satisfy it. 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 128 The idea is simply this: the relation of an organism to its environment is normative in the sense that something is good and something bad in the environment for the organism. Moreover, any animal is up to some extent responsive to goodness and badness and to some extent able to learn from mistakes. Hence this normativity is for the animal. If one's ontology does not allow for this way of thinking, then the ontology may be good for something, but as I see it, no good for conceptualizing animal life. It is for the empirical sciences to shed light into the differences between animals species (cont inued...) 63 We may now ask whether this kind of particularly determined system of taking the world can be in some sense constrained by the world itself. Can a purely individual or solipsist way of taking objects given in consciousness or intuition as something be responsible to what the objects 'really' are? This is the question I made in connection to Brandom's picture of the desiring animal taking something as something. The answer was that for sure the world itself in the end decides whether something represented by the animal as food really is food. Now, although Hegel does not very explicitly develop these questions in connection to desire, it seems obvious that the answer implied by his position is also affirmative. Any desireoriented world-relation implies criteria of correctness for the reflective judgements made by 'desire' (or 'drive'). The representative or judgemental of activity of desire has to be, and is, answerable to the world itself as to its correctness. But this simply shows that the 'space of reasons' extends all the way to the world. Thus in one sense, already this very primitive form of subjective spirit 'has no other': the world as conceived from the purely individual perspective of the desiring animal really is how the world is from this perspective. And it is the world itself that in this perspective normatively constrains any tokens of judgements. This is what Hegel means by what I call self-consciousness1: in being conscious of something as something a desiring subject is conscious of the world as structured by its own way of representing the world. This specific way of representing the world however really is (in successful cases) the way that the world, as it were, 'allows' itself to be conceived. And not only is this normative constraint by the world to tokens of judgement on this primitive level something revealed to 'us', it is something to or for the desiring subject itself: if a token of representing (=taking as, judging) something given in sensations as game for me fails and it turns out that what I represented as game for me in fact is a beast for which I am game, this failure becomes evident in a very efficient way when the beast eats me up. The normative constraint in a purely 'animal' representational activity is something given to or 'felt' by the animal.128 2. SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 128 (...continued) in their ab ilities to understand their own good and bad and their capabilities for learning from mistakes. These differences can be then understood as differences in the conceptual sub-spaces of the animal-species in question. (See also Redding 1996, 104110.) 64 This means that although Hespe is literally right in saying that the intentions of a purely singular subject cannot be 'wahrheitsfähig', they however can be 'correct' (Richtig) or false in the ordinary correspondencesense. 'Truth' in the strong ontological sense for Hegel points to essences of things, of which the purely singular subject is not yet conscious since it is only conscious of what things are from its limited desiring perspective. In order to be explicitly related to the 'truth of things' the singular perspective has to go through a radical relativization, that is, it has to mediated by other perspectives. This is something discussed by Hegel in the chapter 'Recognitive self-consciousness'. Before going into this theme (in my chapter 4), I will however take up the question of the difference between 'Gegenstände' and 'Objekte' that I already referred to in my chapter 1. 129 In the Introduction to PS Hegel only uses the word 'Gegenstand' but since, as far as I see, this word-usage does no systematical work in PS I use here the word 'object'. 130 "Es ist in ihm [i.e. Bewusstsein] eine s für ein anderes, oder es hat überhaupt die Bestimmtheitdes Moments des Wissens an ihm; zugleich ist ihm dies Andere nicht nur für es, sondern auch ausser dieser Beziehung oder an sich ; das Moment d er Wahrheit ." (PdG, p. 77) 131 See also Düsing 1986, p. 333. 65 3. 'Objekt' versus 'Gegenstand' The relation of 'objects' and 'Gegenstände' has in fact a certain analogy to how Hegel in the introduction to the Jena Phenomenology of Spir it (PS) characterizes the doubled relation of consciousness (or the forms of consciousness) analyzed in PS to its Gegenstand. On the one hand the object129 is for consciousness "for it" and on the other hand something "in itself".130 This twofoldedness of the object is essential for Hegel's Darstellung in PS: every incomplete form of consciousness will be sublated when it turns out that what consciousness took as the Gegenstand 'in itself', was in fact only what it is 'for consciousness'. This drama recurs over and over again in many different guises during the "road of despair" of PS. Is then something like this perhaps also going on in PSS? No and yes. No, because the function of PSS is completely different than that of PS. There are long and winding discussions about the function that Hegel originally thought PS to have, about how Hegel's original idea in fact is realized in the book and about what really is the relation of PS to what turned out to be Hegel's encyclopedic system. The details can be ignored here. At all events, whereas Hegel wrote (or at least originally intended to write) PS as an introduction to his system that was to show all alternative (everyday and philosophical) standpoints as imperfect on their own, but however containing partial truths of the true standpoint – PSS is not anything like an introduction to the system but is part of the system itself.131 This difference also holds for what ever is to be said of the relation of PS and the section 'Phenomenology of Spirit; Consciousness' in PSS. Whereas in PS 'consciousness' or 'natural consciousness' analyzed in the introduction of PS is a methodological tool (which Hegel uses in order lead his readers to the standpoint of logic), the relation of which to real living forms of consciousnesses is more or less indirect, in PSS Hegel analyzes consciousness as a moment of real individual subjects. Thus nothing – or 3. 'OBJEKT' VERSUS 'GEGENSTAND' 132 "Das theoret ische Verhalten b eginnt mit der Hem mung der Begierde, is t uneigennützig, lässt die Dinge gew ähren und besteh en; mit dieser Stellung haben w ir sogleich zwei, Objekt und Subjekt, und die Trennung be ider festgesetzt, ein Diesseits und ein Jenseits." 133 See 2.1. 66 as I will shortly say, almost nothing – like the procedure of showing the 'in itself' of various 'forms of consciousness' to be only 'for consciousness' is happening in PSS. This has the consequence that although attempts to try to understand PSS by reading passages from PS may sometimes be helpful, they can be also totally misleading. Yes, because in fact something like a transition through the revelation that 'an sich' is in fact only 'for consciousness' happens in the course of the 'Phenomenology' of PSS twice. I'm emphasizing the 'something like' since even this one case is in many ways different from the transitions of PS. Namely, unlike in PS, in PSS Hegel is not doing anything like showing the inadequacy of different 'forms of consciousness' and leading his reader through more and more developed ones to the level of the logic. Yet Hegel's usage of 'Gegenstand' and 'Object' points to a somewhat similar distinction than that between the 'for consciousness' and 'in itself' in PS. We may use as a clue here what Hegel says in Zusatz to § 246 of his philosophy of nature. There Hegel discusses the theoretical attitude of natural sciences as presupposing suppression of desiring relation to objects.132 According to Hegel it is this suppression of desire that actually establishes a firm difference between subject and Objekt, and as such establishes 'objectivity'. The context of this remark is of course very different from the 'Phenomenology'-section of PSS, but nevertheless it articulates something that is implicitly present in Hegel's usage of 'Gegenstand' and 'Object' in the 'Phenomenology' of PSS. Although Hegel nowhere explicates the difference, it is clear that 'we'that is Hegel and his readers – know that the Gegenstand the singular consciousness has as its actual intentional correlate is not yet 'Objekt' in the full sense of the word. However, for the consciousness itself under analysis there is not yet such distinction on the singular level. This can be seen in both the 'Consciousness as such' and the 'Self-consciousness'-subsections. I will first take a look at 'Consciousness as such'. According to § 418 consciousness as 'sensuous consciousness' is a relation to a Gegenstand.133 Yet the logical determinations as the determinations of this Gegenstand are for sensuous consciousness "determinations of the Objekt". Here we are aware that what sensuous consciousness is explicitly conscious of is really 3. 'OBJEKT' VERSUS 'GEGENSTAND' 134 In his lectures on phenomeno logy from 1825 Hegel discusses different meanings of 'Objektivität', one of which is objective validity: "Die Objektivität hat aber auch drittens den Sinn der Al lgemeinheit des subjektiven des Bewusstseins. Ich bin einzeln, es sind viele solche Einze ln und Objektivität ist dann die Allgemeinheit diesen Vielen. Nach diesem sinn ist das was Gegenstand ist für mich als für diesen Besonderen, auch Gegensta nd für die An deren." (Petry III, s. 290) Here 'Objektivität' is taking a Gegenstand as anyone takes it. Although Hegel does not say it here, we can add that in this case co nsciousne ss is explicitly related to an 'Objekt' and not to a mere 'Gegenstand'. See also § 41 Zusatz 2 in the Encyc lopedia logic. I am not claiming that Hegel's use of 'Gegenstand' and 'Objekt' would accord with m y interpretation throughout the Encyclopedia but only that in 'Phenomenology' this difference seems to carry the kind of systematical weight I'm suggesting. More work has to be done on this topic. 67 only a Gegenstand – that it is something constituted in the process of representing of the singular, yet unmediated subjectivity – and thus we can say that what we know to be an Objekt, is still for the sensuous conscious a mere Gegenstand. It is first in 'Perception' and truly on the level of 'Understanding' where the given for consciousness truly has become "Objekt" for the subject under consideration (§ 421). The level of Perception then is according to Hegel that of "our everyday consciousness and more or less of the sciences" (§ 420). On this level consciousness is thus related to objects not simply from its singular point of view, but (also) from the point of view of what they are for others. Objekt is thus here to be understood in connection with 'objectivity' as 'objective validity' (allgemeingültigkeit).134 This same structure is visible also in 'Self-consciousness'. In § 424 where Hegel analyzes the singular consciousness as self-consciousness (i.e. self-consciousness1) he uses 'Gegenstand' as the word for the intentional correlate of this singular consciousness. Then in § 425 consciousness is again "burdened" with something "external". This something Hegel names 'Objekt'. Thus 'Objekt' here is something more than the mere 'Gegenstand' (within which consciousness is implicitly related to itself) as determined by its singular way of taking it. However consciousness is the 'drive' against the 'Objekt', that is, the drive to reduce the Object to a mere Gegenstand. Here 'drive' obviously means something more general than the mere desire for objects – it is a drive to overcome any resistance from outside against the general desire-oriented intentionality. However, the immediate form on consciousness as self-consciousness as 'desire' does not yet contain anything that would make it explicitly aware of the lack of objectivity of its Gegenstand. Although we know already in § 426 that the 3. 'OBJEKT' VERSUS 'GEGENSTAND' 135 We could understand the difference between 'Gegenstand' and 'Objekt' in the following way: what is given for consciousness is always for it Gegenstand. But because we look at this relation from outside we know that it is Objekt. When th e subject is able to see its relation to its Gegen stand as we do, it also kno ws it to be Objekt. I n becoming habituated to intend Gegenstände as something that are not only what they are from a given point of view, or according to a given way of co nceptualizing, its Gegenstände become Objekte also for it, and cease to be 'mere Gegenstände'. (However, since much of the conten t of our intention ality is nece ssarily more or less idiosyncratically colored not all Gegenstände can become Objekte . See 5.) 136 § 429: "[...] eines freien Objekt s [...]". § 430: "[...] als Ich absolut geg en mich selbständiges anderes Objekt." 68 singular consciousness as self-consciousness is in fact living in a world that is not reducible to the singular and as such particular desire-oriented way of taking the world, in the point of view of singular consciousness as desire the Objekt is still "determined as null". This is of course a truth that is not present for the desiring consciousness itself. It implicitly knows of itself within a Gegenstand (§ 427). 'Implicitly' ("an sich"), first of all because on this level consciousness does not yet know that it knows its world only as determined by its singular point of view, and hence that it knows within it 'of itself'. That is, because it does not know that its explicit other is a mere Gegenstand and not yet an 'objective Objekt'. Thus: "Das gegebene Objekt wird hierin ebenso subjektiv gesetzt" (§ 427). Secondly, because it is not yet self-consciousness for itself, that is, it is not aware in any sense of the implicitly reflective structure of its world-relation.135 Where does then the singular consciousness as self-consciousness explicitly encounter something that makes it conscious of the discrepancy of its Gegenstand and the objective Objekt? Not within its desire-oriented activity in the midst of Gegenstände that satisfies its desire – and not even in relation to otherness that does not satisfy it, since all these still receive their meaning only in relation to the demands of desire. Something that is not desirable, does not as such contain anything that would 'awake' the desiring subject from its overall desire-orientation, it merely is for the desiring subject nothing other than the 'not desirable'. It is not until the subject encounters something that as such resists the whole project of desire-orientation, something that cannot be simply subsumed neither under the universal of the desirable, nor under that of the not desirable (nor under any other merely 'reflective' predicate). This strange other is another subject or 'I' as "a free Objekt" (§ 429), an "absolutely independent other Objekt against me" (§ 430).136 The other I that is first encounte3. 'OBJEKT' VERSUS 'GEGENSTAND' 69 red as something which resists the general approach of desiring subject to its environment, is thus an Objekt which, as it were, is interesting enough to direct the 'attention' (until now directed by desire) to features that do not fit into the logical structure of the singular subject's so far actual intentions. In the end, this "absolutely independent other object" will also mediate the subjects explicit relation to the world as a whole. This happens by first ascending onto the level of an intersubjectively mediated, but still particular level of consciousness as self-consciousness (which I will call self-consciousness2) and after that by ascending onto the universal level of consciousness as "universal self-consciousness" (which I will call selfconsciousness3). These ascending steps are where recognition comes into the picture. 137 On the theme of recognition in Hegel's work see Siep 1979. 138 "Dies allgemeine Wiedererscheinen des Selbstbewusstseins, der Begriff, der sich in seiner Objektivität als mit sich identische Subjektivität und darum allgemein weiss, ist die Form des Bewusstse ins der Substanz jeder wesentlichen Geistigkeit, der Familie, des Vaterlandes, des Staats, sowie aller Tugenden, der Liebe, Freundschaft, Tapferkeit, der Ehre, des Ruhms." 139 M.J. Petry emphasizes, I believe correctly, that Hegel's references to social history in the 'Recognition'-chapter are to be understood only as didac tic illustration of the (cont inued...) 70 4. Desire and recognition The theme of recognition (Anerkennung) is certainly the locus classicus in Hegel-reception. One has only to mention the names of Marx, Lukács, Kojève, Sartre, Habermas etc. to remind of the huge importance this theme has had in post-hegelian philosophy and social thinking.137 What has however not received that much attention is that for Hegel recognition is not only a social philosophical concept, but has also an epistemological meaning. Yet, it would be inaccurate to say that this epistemological meaning of recognition is separate from the social philosophical one. In the Encyclopedia PSS recognition obviously plays a cental role for everything Hegel will say later in his philosophy of objective spirit. Writers like Habermas and Honneth seem to be dissatisfied for the fact that the concept of recognition does not appear in the Encyclopedia philosophy of objective spirit (nor in the more extensive Philosophy of Right) in those explicit forms it did in Hegel's philosophies of spirit in the Jena period. However, since recognition obviously is the presupposition for what Hegel calls the 'universal self-consciousness', its function in the philosophy of spirit as a whole should not be underestimated. Namely, 'universal self-consciousness', which originates in recognition, is according to Hegel "the substance of all essential spirituality, the family, the native country, the state, as well as all virtues, – of love, friendship, courage, honour and fame" (§ 436).138 Yet, it is certainly true that the chapter on recognition in PSS is rather compact and its function in the book is far from self-evident. In general I believe that in order to understand its importance we have to read it in a broadly speaking epistemological sense. In fact, that Hegel in PSS explicitly discusses recognition in connection to a rather limited sphere of examples of social phenomena, may even hide from view what recognition is all about.139 I will in the following read the chapter on 'recognitive self4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 139 (...continued) theme (see P etry III, pp. 377-379, note 69, 32). As far as I can see, there is no principled reason w hy Hegel could not have as well i l lustrated the theme of recognition with examples of early childhood experiences of a person . In his explicit discussion of human chi ldhood and youth in § 396 Z the the mes of desire and recognition are clearly visible. In the 20'th century the theme of recognition has in fact had strong resonances in developmental psychological theories (f.ex. of G.H.Mead, Donald Winnicott, Jessica Benjamin) (see Honn eth 1995, pp. 71-107 ). Here I wil l however follow Hegel's text as it stands. 71 consciousness' in relation to what I have so far said about the singular level of intentionality of self-consciousness1. In general terms, in recognition intentionality goes through a process of broadening, so that whereas the singular self-consciousness1 has as its actual intentional correlates only Gegenstände that are known only from the viewpoint of their function in the logical space limited by desire, after recognition consciousness is consciousness of reality from the point of view that has transcended singularity. On this cultivated level the actual intentional correlates of consciousness are 'taken as' what they are from a social (or ideally absolute) perspective. An example: for a singular desiring animal objects are only that what is their meaning in relation to the satisfaction of the animal's desires; on the other hand for a social animal objects are what they are for the survival of the whole community of which it is a member. Yet there is no absolute necessity for a desiring animal not to 'take' its other also from a point of view that is irrelevant to its desireorientation, and also no absolute necessity for a social animal not to take its other also from a point of view that is irrelevant for the community, but since it is 'interest' that directs the explicit intentionality and limits the logical space of actual intentionality, a new interest would be needed to redirect the attention to previously uninteresting features of the world. But what is then the interest that directs the attention of a singular desiring subject to what the objects are for others – what motivates us to actually see objects from a point of view of what they are for anyone, or at least for our community? An obvious answer on the tip of the tongue is "language". After all, in learning language we learn conceptual schemes that as such are 'viewpoint-neutral' – or at least not specific to any one singular subject. However, simply referring to language is not a sufficient answer at least in Hegel's terms, first of all since language only articulates in 'linguistic form' logical structures that in themselves are in no way merely linguistic, secondly because language presupposes the subjective capacities for gras4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 140 "Es ist ein Selbstbewusstsein für ein anderes Selbstbewusstsein zunächst unmittelbar als ein Anderes für ein Anderes. Ich schaue in ihm als Ich m ich selbst an, aber auch darin ein unmittelbar daseiendes, als Ich absolut gegen mich selb ständiges anderes Objekt. Das Aufheben der Einzelheit des Selbstbewusstseins w ar das erste Aufheben; es ist damit nur als ein besonderes bestimmt. -Diese r Wiederspruch gibt den Trieb , sich als freies Selbst zu zeigen und für den Anderen als solches da zu sein, -den Prozes des Anerkennens." 72 ping the logical structures of the world, and thirdly because, as Hegel puts it, "nothing is brought about without an interest" (§ 475). There would be no linguistic animals if language had no practical point – there has to be some interest or motivation for using language in the first place, since language itself is nothing like an 'interest'. In contrast to the in the 20'th century enormously popular way of reducing epistemological and ontological questions to linguistic questions, Hegel construes a picture of the birth of social intentionality that is both faithful to his strong epistemological and ontological realism, and yet offers simple pragmatic or 'naturalistic' way to understand how there can be the kind of subjects that his realism requires. To show this, I will go on with the reading of Hegel's text in the 'Selfconsciousness'-subsection. Now, the singular desiring subject had as its actual intentional correlates Gegenstände which did not contain anything that would have turned attention to any features other than those relevant for satisfying the desire. Hence self-consciousness1 "implicitly [knew] itself in a Gegenstand which in this relation [was] in accordance with the drive" (§ 427). But in § 429 there appears "a free Objekt" which does not anymore 'fit in' the desire-oriented worldview. The confrontation with this free Objekt Hegel goes on to elaborate in § 430 which is the first paragraph in the chapter 'Recognitive self-consciousness'. The text of § 430 goes: One self-consciousness is for another self-consciousness, at first immedia tely as one other for another. I intuit in him [in ihm] myse lf, but also in him [darin ] an immediate determinate being, as an I absolutely independent Objekt against me. The sublation of singularity was the first sublation, through which self -consc iousness is only determined as part icular. -This contradiction produces the drive to display oneself as a free self and to b e as such fo r the oth er, -the pro cess of recognition.140 According to the first sentence an "abstract" (§ 425) or "singular" (§ 426) and "immediate" (§ 430) desiring self-consciousnesses is confronted with another similar self-consciousness. The second sentence is more difficult. What does Hegel mean by saying that I "intuit in him [both] myself" and 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 141 Nutriment, a piece of meat that I desire; someone or -thing possessing nutriments that I desire etc. 142 Although the order of expo sition in the PSS do es not fol low any real tempo ral sequences, and also here the order of exposition is not in any simple sense an empirical one, yet reading a temporal succession into the 'Recognitive self-c onsciou sness'chapter is not totally out of place. This Hegel himself makes clear by using the struggle and the relation of mastery and servitude as empirical illustration of the structu re of recognition. Developm ental psycholo gy would provide oth er illustrative material where the lo gical structures clearly 'develop themselves' in time. Edith Düsing emphasizes the difference between the exhibitions of the structure of recognition in t h e c o r r e s p o n d i n g s e c t i o n s o f P S a n d P S S . A cc o r d i n g t o h e r : " D i e Gedankenentwicklung de r f rüheren Phänomeno log i e war fund ie r t in der Erfahrungsabfolge des Bewusstsein s [...]" whereas in PSS Hegel's expo sition follows only "Bestimmungen der spekulativen Begriffslogik" and p roceeds according to the (cont inued...) 73 also "an immediate determinate being, [which] as an I [is an] absolutely independent Objekt"? First proposal: "I intuit in him myself" means that I intuit the other as similar to myself, as another immediate I. But this does not work, since the second part of the sentence would then say more or less the same thing. The fact that the first and second part of the sentence are separated by "but also" means that they do not say the same thing. Second proposal: "I intuit in him myself" recapitulates the structure of self-consciousness1 that Hegel took up in § 424. That is, I intuit (or am conscious of) the other from the point of view of my 'self-centered' desireoriented way of 'taking' or subsuming things. The other is to me what he is in the light of my limited actual intentions.141 "Intuiting" points here to the general process of representing I have discussed earlier, the process which as the particularly directed way of subsuming constitutes the actual correlates of consciousness for the subject. Thus the other is my 'intuition'(or more generally 'my representation' (§ 424)) and therefore I implicitly intuit in him myself. Or more exactly, I try to intuit in him implicitly myself, that is, I try to reduce him into the logical space of my desire-oriented intentionality. This interpretation works well in the light of the previous paragraphs and also makes understandable why this first part of the sentence is separated from the latter by "but also". Namely, the point of the second part of the second sentence ("but also in him an immediate determinate being, as an I absolutely independent Objekt against me") is that the attempt to intuit the other according to my desire-oriented conceptual system faces for the first time142 resistance from 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 142 (...continued) "begriffslogische Bestimmungen" of singularity, particularity and universality (Düsing 1986, p . 336). I agree with Düsing what comes to the differences of the overall structures of PS and PSS. PSS does not generally follow any "Erfahrungsabfo lge" as PS does, and not taking this into account can lead to serious confusion in reading PSS. How ever the the difference should not be exaggerated either. First of all because the relation of the 'Erfahrungsabfolge' of PS to real history is, to say the least, indirect, and there are long discussions of the function of Hegel's logic also in ordering the exposition of PS. In fact in the intro duction o f PS Hegel says explicitly that the whole series of 'forms of consciousnesses' is someth ing l ike an 'Erf ahrungsabfolge ' only ' for us' the phi losopher s and no t to the methodo log i ca l abs t rac t ion tha t Hege l c al ls 'consciousness'. The wh ole series of fo rms of con sciousness in P S is ordere d according to criteria which do not exist for 'consciousness'(See PdG, pp. 79-80 (PS, § 87): "In jener Ansicht aber zeigt sich de r neue Gegenstand als geworden, durch eine Umkehrung d es Bewusstseins selbst. Diese B etrachtung der Sach e ist unsere Zutat, wodurch sich die Re ihe der Erf ahrungen des Bewusstse ins zum wissenschaftlichen Gange erhebt und welche nicht für das Bewusstsein ist, das wir betrachten. [...] E s kommt dadurch in seine Bewegung ein Moment des Ansichoder Fürunsseins, welches nich t für das Bewusstsein, das in de r Erfahrung begriffen ist, sich darstellt; [...]" Hence, at least it is not self-evident that what Hegel means by 'experience' in PS would be in the end anything else than applied logic. On the other hand (whatever in the end is the truth about the relation of logic and phenomenological experience in PS) as I said in 2.3 ., something very similar to the transitions from one form of consciousness to another in PS seems to take place in the PSS twice , name ly f i r s t i n the t rans i tion f rom the singu lar sub jec tiv i ty to a 'particularistic' level of subjectivity me diated by an othe r subject ('Co nsciousne ss as such' and 'Self -consciousness'-subsections are then two aspects of this one transition) and secondly in the transition from this particularistic level to a universal level (that i s, to 'Understanding' and 'Universal self-consciousness'). Although the chap ter on recognition is in PSS much more compact than in PS, seeing something like an experience of consciousness happening in the version of PSS is at least not much more problematical than seeing it in the version of PS. This reading does not contradict with the obvious fact that Hegel is in PSS analyzing internally related moments of real individual subjectivity (see § 380), since in the case of a fully cultivated subject these developmenta l steps or levels are contained as moments . As I see it, this does not imply modularism if we allow that cultivation as the appearance of the higher levels changes also the lower ones as moments of the whole. (I am grateful to Christoph H albig and Michael Quante for pressing me on th e question of the relation of structural analysis and developmental account in PSS. Clearly more work on this issue is st ill needed.) 74 the world. Whereas so far the intentional correlates of the desiring singular subject have been mediated by the desire-oriented 'taking' to such an extent that their otherness can be said to have been determined as 'null', 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 143 "Er ist ein Kampf; denn ich kann mich im Anderen nicht als mich selbst wissen, insofern das Andere ein unmittelbares anderes Dasein für mich ist; ich bin daher auf die Aufhebung dieser seiner Unmittelbarkeit gerichtet. Ebensosehr kann ich nicht als Unmittelbares anerkannt werden, sondern nur insofern ich an m ir selbst die Unmittelbarkeit aufhebe und dadurch meiner Freiheit Dasein gebe. Aber diese Unmittelbarkeit ist zugleich die Leiblichkeit des Selbstbewusstseins, in welcher es als in seinem Z eichen und We rkzeug sein e igenes Selbstgefühl sowie sein Sein für andere und seine es mit ihnen vermittlende Beziehung hat." 75 now self-consciousness is in a situation where it has an object that simply is not graspable within the logical space of desire. It is in this sense that the other self-consciousness is a "free Objekt" and not a mere Gegenstand. Yet, because the actual intentionality of self-consciousness1 still is limited by the logical space constituted by the desire-orientation, it tries to accommodate the other self-consciousness in the space of its mere Gegenstände. This is the drive that Hegel mentioned in § 425. Hence there is a "contradiction" and the attempt to hold on to desire-orientation is a "drive" to overcome the contradiction by mediating the other and remaining nonmediated by the other self-consciousness – which on its behalf has a similar drive. Thus two self-consciousnesses1 try to reduce the otherness or 'freedom' of each other and hence remain effortlessly or 'abstractly free' (§ 424) from mediation by the other. This is an abstract form of 'recognition' which both try to obtain on this primitive level. However, already here Hegel makes an allusion to "a drive to display" (zeigen), that points to the inevitable necessity of mutual mediation for recognition. The content of this drive is already more developed than that of the drive mentioned in § 425. The point will become clearer in the following paragraphs. In § 431 Hegel goes on to elaborate the conflict presented in § 430. The text goes: There is a struggle; for I cannot know myself as myself in another insofar as the other is an immediate other determinate being for me; I am therefore oriented to the sublation of this its immediacy. Equally I cannot be recognized as immediate, but only insofar as I sublate the immediacy in myself and give determinate being for my freedom. Yet, this immediacy is at the same time the corporeity of selfconsciousness, within which it has as in its signs and tools its self-feeling as well as its being for others, and its mediating relation with them.143 The first sentence containing two sub-sentences restates what Hegel has already said in § 430: the singular intentionality of self-consciousness1 fails when confronted with another self-consciousness which does not 'fit' the logical space of desire. Whereas Gegenstände are Gegenstände precisely by being mediated by the ego-centric representative activity of the singular 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 144 Yet, it is not 'frictionless' in the sense of the coherentist picture of the "fric tionless spinning in a void" (see McDowell 1996, p. 14) since the desiring way of 'taking' the world as eatable, not-eatable, enemy etc. is firmly in contact w ith what objec ts really are or turn out to be (in th is case 'eatable'). The logical space of desire extends all the way to the world, even when it is not constrained from 'outside', that is, by other subjects as Objekte that do not fit into it. 76 and yet un-mediated subjectivity, the other self-consciousness is an "independent Objekt" (§ 430) by not yielding to this mediation. The other selfconsciousness simply shows completely 'other' features than those that fit the logical space of desire. Therefore the desiring subject cannot "intuit itself" (§ 430) in it. Of course the fact that the singular consciousness has been selfconsciousness so far in the way I have described earlier, is known only by us, since consciousness is yet far too undeveloped as to be aware of the 'ego-centric' nature of its representations (see § 424 Z), that is, of the fact that it intuits the world as its own 'interest' determines and in this sense is implicitly 'self-consciousness'. So also the incapability of the I to know itself in the other, which Hegel explicates here, is an adequate formulation only of what we know to be the case: the singular I does not "know itself" (§ 424) (or "know myself" (§ 431)) in the other. Yet, even if the true nature of the contradiction is not known by the singular self-consciousness the contradiction as such is present for it. The second and third sentence point to something that will become more explicit only after an attempt to 'totally mediate' the other, to force it to fit among objects that are graspable according to the conceptual structures of desiring intentionality, has been considered. The primitive and 'total' way to mediate the other is to kill it/him. The desiring subject wants to eat something and if its strong enough it kills whatever tries to stop it. Or perhaps what the desiring subject wants to eat is the other subject. Also in this case the desiring subject, if it is strong enough, kills the other – and then eats it. The object has been absolutely mediated, the mediating subject remained immediate, and the logical space of desire remains frictionless.144 This possibility Hegel briefly considers in § 432. Now, a less primitive way to mediate the other within the space of desire is to enslave him. From the point of view of satisfying desire, it has the advantage of being more enduring. If I eat the other I will be hungry again after a while, but if I manage to enslave the other, to force the other to take care of my future satisfaction (i.e. to hunt for me etc.) then the better for me. However, in this case I have to be able to pose a threat of 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 145 "Der Kampf des Anerkennens g eht also au f Leben und Tod ; jedes der beiden Selbstbewusstsein bringt das Leben des anderen in Gefahr und begibt sich selbst darein, aber nur als in Gefahr, denn eben so ist jedes auf die Erhaltung seines Lebens als des Daseins seiner Freiheit gerichtet. Der Tod des einen, der den Widerspruch nach einer Seite auflöst, durch die abstrakte, daher rohe Negation der Unmittelbarkeit, ist so nach der we sentlich en Sei te, dem Dasein des Anerkennens, welche s darin zugleich aufgehoben wird, ein neuer W iderspruch, und de r höhere als der erste." 77 death to the other, that is act in a way that only 'signifies' death of the other. I have to be able to somehow "display" (zeigen) (§ 430) that I will kill the other if he does not submit to me, and this 'displaying' or signifying presupposes that I and the other are in a shared space of meaning. Only a continued activity of 'signifying' the threat of death to my slave will prevent his attempt to subsume me again in his logical space of singular desire. In this symbolic activity I have however already sublated pure immediacy in myself, i.e. mediated myself through the common space of communicative meaning. Thus the "drive to display" mentioned in § 430 is a much more developed activity than the simple drive to reduce the other to my singular logical space: it involves symbolic interaction. The text of § 432 goes: The struggle for recognition is hence that of life and death; both of the selfconsciousnesses endangers the life of the other and of oneself. Yet, only endangers , for each is equally committed to the preservation of its life as the determinate being of its freedom. The death of the other which solves the contradiction from one side through the abstract and therefore crude negation of im mediacy , is from the essential side of the de terminate b eing of re cognition – that hereby is also sublated – a new contradiction, and higher than the first.145 Thus there is one the one hand a 'drive' to mediate the other, but on the other hand a motivation to stay alive. If either one of the combatants die, then the contradiction presented in § 430 has been solved from the point of view of the one who won the fight. Now, if we presuppose that the combatants are fully aware of the logical implications of the death of the other, that is, of the fact that a dead other cannot produce 'recognition' in the true Hegelian sense, which we as post-hegelian philosophers are all more or less familiar with, then obviously the combatants know that the death of the other does not produce true recognition. But because these primitive combatants certainly have not read any Hegel or post-hegelian philosophy, they are not aware of the fact that in the death of the other true 'recognition' "is also sublated" (§ 432). This means, that if both of the combatants happen to stay alive, it is not because both deliberately tried not 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 146 Perhaps it presupposes a capacity for representing possible future states of affairs and their log ical re lations to present actions. 147 I emphasize again that these considerations should not however cover up the fact that the imagery of fighting, surrendering, and enslaving serves only an illustrative purpose. If the structure of recogn ition would be illustrated with ea rly childhood experiences of humans in societies, then a different set of considerations would be appropriate. Even there it would be still important to distinguish the logical course of the stages o f the recognitive p rocess from the natural motivations without which no reciprocal recognition would ever really happen. 148 The presentation of 'recognitive self-consciousness' is so compact that Hegel goes straight after d iscussing the fight to a situation of a lord and a servant (Knecht) even if slavery would be more adequate characterization of the situation that is a result of surrender in a fight. In his 1825 lectures on phenomenology Hegel in fact discusses the (cont inued...) 78 to kill the other and only to endanger the life of the other, but rather only because the weaker surrendered when it was faced with the threat of death. The ability for, not only knowing when one is in danger of dying, but even finding the complicated way of staying alive by surrendering to the other could be thought to be quite amazing since it presupposes capacities of orienting in a fairly complicated space of logical possibilities and implications.146 It also presupposes the capacity of "displaying" somehow that one has surrendered. Thus, even if the understanding of the subjects under consideration here is certainly not developed enough to understand all the intricacies and implications of the structure explicated by Hegel, it is developed enough to enable surrendering and the state that follows thereafter. But this is what Hegel says: understanding is 'instinctual' and all that is presupposed from the subjects under consideration here is a developed enough instinctual understanding. My point is only, that the process Hegel is describing should not be understood as presupposing some kind of inner teleology that makes the primitive subjectivities to yearn for the fulfilled state of mutual recognition in developed societies. There is no mystical 'logical force' independent of the natural interests of desiring subjects behind the development of subjectivity from the singular desiring level to an intersubjectively mediated level. 'Natural' motives and interests and instinctual understanding are enough to drive the development that in the end will produce fully socialized subjectivities and hence unfold the true logical structure of mutual recognition.147 But back to the text. The state of mastery and servitude (Herrschaft und Knechtschaf t)148 which follows (in § 433) when the struggle of the desire4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 148 (...continued) difference between being a slave (Sklave) and being a servant (Petry III, p. 343). In the maintext of the 1830 Encyclopedia Hegel talks only of 'servitude' and the word 'slave' appears only in Bouman's Zusatz to § 435. Because the material out of which Bouman constructed the Zusätze derives from different semesters, this does not tell much. In any case, the looseness of H egel's discussion of the situation after the fight is justified by the fact that it is meant to be only illustration of a more general point. 149 "Dies Verhältn is ist einerseits, da das M ittel der H errschaft, der Knecht, in seinem Leben gleichfalls erhalten werden muss, Gemeinsamkeit des Bedürfnisses und die Sorge für dessen Befriedigung. An die Stelle der rohen Zerstörung des unmittelbaren Objekt s t r i t t die Erwerbung, Erh altung und Formie rung desselb en a l s des Vermittlenden, w orin die beiden Extreme der Selbständigkeit und Unselbständigkeit sich zusammenschl iessen ; – d ie Form der Al lgemeinheit in Befriedigung des Bedürfnisses ist ein daurndes Mittel und eine die Zukunft berücksichtigende und (cont inued...) 79 oriented subjects has ended to the surrender of one of the parties, is a state involving communication, and hence some level of mutual communicative understanding. What is important now, is the fact that this state will cultivate the actual intentionality of both parties. Both, the master and the servant have an interest for attending to the world from the point of view of what objects in the world are – not merely in relation to one's singular interests but – in relation to the interests of the other. When this mode of intentionality becomes habitual, the intentions of the subjects have as their correlates objects that are subsumed under universals such as 'satisfying him' etc. 4.1.Socially mediated consciousness of the world: s e l f -c on s c iou sn e s s 2 I will first consider the developmental moments involved in the position of the master and then those involved in the position of the servant. The text of § 434 goes: This relation [of the master and the servant, H.I.] is on the one hand – since the servant as the means of mastery has also to be kept alive – community of needs and concern fo r its satisfaction. The crude destruction of the immediate Objekt is replaced b y the takin g possession of, preservation and formation of it as the mediating factor within which the two extremes of independence and dependence unite themselves. The form of universality in the satisfying of needs is a perpetuating means and a provision which takes future into ac count and secures it.149 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 149 (...continued) sichernde Mittel." 80 First we have to consider what Hegel means by the "immediate Objekt" which previously was 'crudely destructed' and which now is 'taken possession of, conserved and formed'. A proposal: it is the natural products with which the desiring selfconsciousness1 immediately satisfied its desire by simply eating them without further ado and which now are being cultivated (as agriculture, holding domestic animals, production of clothing etc.). This change in attitude towards the surrounding nature is somehow motivated by, or at least connected to, the "community of needs" of the master and the servant. Yet, I think this reading is too farfetched. If there is some advantage in not eating immediately but cultivating and saving for future, why would it demand the complex situation of mastery and servitude for the subject to realize this? In fact Hegel talks in the philosophy of nature of the animal activity of "formal assimilation" of nature, such as building nests (§ 362), and thus points to the well known fact that even animals do cultivate, form and store up natural products for future satisfaction. The solution: as we have already seen, by an "immediate Objekt" Hegel means the unyielding other self-consciousness1 within which selfconsciousness1 tried to "intuit itself" (§ 430) but which resisted this mediation. The "crude destruction" is the killing of the other as "abstract, therefore crude negation of immediacy" (§ 432) which is the simple solution to the contradiction described in § 430. The situation of mastery and servitude (which takes place if the combatants have a developed enough instinct of understanding to be able to this complex solution of the contradiction) is now a situation where the one who surrendered is taken possession of, conserved and formed by the one who did not surrender. Whereas nutriments can to some extent be preserved without keeping them alive, the preservation of the servant as a servant, or as Hegel writes "as the means of mastery", necessitates keeping it/him alive. The very simple precondition for being and remaining a master is keeping the servant alive by not 'using him up'. Yet, this new situation means not only that the master has to be explicitly conscious of the servant as an object in more complicated ways than it was of the natural Gegenstände of its singular desire, it also has to be explicitly conscious of the rest of the world in a much broader sense than on the level of singular desire. Namely, the conditions of survival of the 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 150 "-Dieser, de r Knech t, aber arbeitet sich im Dienste des Herrn seinen Einzelund (cont inued...) 81 servant concern its relation to the rest of the world. The servant (similarly than the master) is a living organism that has something in the world as its "inorganic nature" (§ 361 Z) and hence the master has to be able to be explicitly conscious also of the logical space determined by the servants needs. In doing this, the master recognizes the validity of the point of view of the servant for its (i.e. the master's) own orientation. In § 433 Hegel in fact states that in the relation of the mastery and servitude the servant has to "give up being recognized". Yet, this giving up is obviously not the complete truth of the relation of the master and the servant. The position of the master in relation to the servant necessitates implicit recognition of the validity of the consciousness (or point of view) of the servant. Anyway, the 'interest' that directs the attention of the master and thus its representing activity as a whole is now much more complex than on the singular level of self-consciousness1. Not only one's own need, but also the needs of the servant, and the complex interrelation of them, that is, a "community of needs" are now decisive for the master as a 'concrete subjectivity' in the overall constitution of its intentionality. If the master is not attendant to the features of the world that ensure both its own survival and that of the servants, i.e. if the satisfaction of need as its goal does not have "[t]he form of universality" it does not take the "future [of the master-servant-relation, H.I.] into account and secure it". In taking the world from the more general point of view of the needing community the master has transcended the level of self-consciousness1 and is on the way of developing into 'universal self-consciousness', that is, consciousness that intends the world as what it is from the point of view of 'whoever'. Of course more developmental steps are yet needed to attain true universality, but many of them have already been described as taken by Hegel's illustrative device called 'the master'. Let us now consider the development from the point of view of the 'servant'. Compared to the account of mastery and servitude in the Jena Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel is in PSS exceedingly brief especially in describing the situation of the servant. In the maintext, the lessons of the servant are condensed into one sentence. (Bouman's Zusätze contain a bit more.) This sentence in § 435 goes: [...] the servant[...] works off its singular and egoistic will, sublates the inner immediacy of desire and makes this externalization and the fear of the lord th e beginning of wisdom, – the transition to universal self-consciousness.150 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 150 (...continued) Eigenwillen ab, hebt die innere Unmittelbarkeit der Begierde auf und macht in dieser Entäusserung und der Furcht des Herrn den Anfang der Weisheit, -den Übergang zum allgemein Selbstbewusstsein." 151 "Das Erzittern der Einzelheit des Willens, das Gefühl der Nichtigkeit der Selbstsucht, die Gewohnheit des Ge horsams ist ein notw endiges M oment in der Bildung jedes Menschen." 152 In § 473 Hege l talks of the most immediate level of will which is "as to its content first only a natural will, immediately identical wit h a det ermin ation [o f] drive and inclination". Hegel's theory of will cannot be discussed here, but its worth noting that the 'will' Hegel mentions in § 435 does not have to be understood as anything else or more developed than the singular desire (which is a form of practical drive). For a discussion of Hegel's theory of the will in connection to conte mporary m odels of autonomy and free will see Quante 1997. 82 The point of this sentence is relatively clear, especially when read in connection to the Zusatz of § 435 where Hegel characterizes the "the quaking of the singularity of will, the feeling of the nullity of self-seeking, the habit of obedience" as a "necessary moment in the education of any man".151 In general terms, the servant's orientation in the world is not any more motivated by its purely singular desire, or its "singular and egoistic will".152 The immediacy of desire is sublated and replaced (as the 'interest' directing intentionality) by an 'externalized' mode. That is, not only the goals of the servant's actions are 'external' to the servant because the explicit goal is now the satisfaction of the master. Also the servants motivational make-up is changed and thus the 'interest' directing its attention is 'external' to itself. In becoming habitual, the direction of attention to features of the world that would not be interesting from the point of view of satisfying one's own singular desire, but are so from the point of view of satisfying the master, changes the space of actual intentional correlates of the servant. It is now open to a much richer realm of features of reality than a subjectivity merely satisfying its own desires. In the Zusatz Hegel uses the expression "nullity of self-seeking". This can be contrasted to the situation of the desiring subjectivity for which objects were mere Gegenstände reduced to their meaning for the satisafaction of the desire, and hence their independence was determined as "null". Thus whereas self-consciousness1 only had Gegenstände that are what they are for consciousness only in relation to the satisfaction of singular desire, both the master and the servant now have as their intentional correlates something that is not merely determined in relation to their desire. Yet, the servant is further in the way of opening to the world, 4. DESIRE AND RECOGNITION 153 Admittedly Hegel does not develop the theme of 'natural motivations' for reaching the stage of universality in PSS. Yet, nothing prevents us from completing the account of PSS in this respect with a plausible theory of the emergence of universalistic institutions. Siep 1979 and Honneth 1995 develop this theme in connection to H egel's texts from the Jena-period. 83 because its desire-orientation on the whole has been reduced to 'null'. As Hegel pointed out already in the beginning of the philosophy of nature (§ 246Z), it is the suppression of desire that first establishes a firm objectivity for the subject. The general epistemological point of recognition in the relation of the master and the servant then is the mediation of consciousness or intentionality through another perspective. This socially mediated consciousness as self-consciousness can be called self-consciousness2 to separate it from the purely singular self-consciousness1. Nevertheless, even the servant has not yet reached true universality of consciousness, since its worldrelation is still determined by "the singular, contingent will" (§ 435 Z) of the master. It is only when the social relation and the consciousness of the world as a whole is not anymore determined by any one desire-oriented point of view, that the space of intentionality opens to world as it is from any point of view. On the level of 'universal self-consciousness' how the world is to be taken is ideally independent from any singular points of view and any merely singular interest-directed ways of ordering it. Looked from the side of the servant this presupposes that servant is freed not only from "its own singularity" but also from "the singularity of the master" (§ 435 Z). Correspondingly this requires that the master "subordinates its egoistic will under the law of the will in and for itself". It is then this universal level of consciousness as self-consciousness (which I call self-consciousness3) which according to Hegel forms "the substance of all essential spirituality, the family, the native country, the state, as well as all virtues, – of love, friendship, courage, honour and fame" (§ 436).153 84 5. Universal consciousness of the world: s e l fc o n s c io u s n e s s 3 As I have claimed, the developments of the 'Consciousness as such'and 'Sel-consciousness'-subsections should be read as two aspects of one development from the singular level to the universal. In the universal level, this is reflected by the fact that both in 'Understanding' and in 'Universal self-consciousness' there is something 'lawful' in the correlates of intentions. Understanding does not anymore have as its correlates merely objects ordered under sensuous universals as 'sensuous consciousness' had, nor is the world for it a "mixture" of singularity and universality (§ 421) as it is on the level of perception. For understanding the world is "a realm of law" (§ 422), which I take to mean that on this level consciousness is able to grasp its world as organized under universal logical determinations or structures. In being explicitly conscious of the world as lawful, in attending to the lawful features of the world consciousness is hence actually intending the world as it is from what ever point of view. Something similar is the case in 'universal self-consciousness'. If 'understanding' depicts the theoretical aspect of 'universal' intentionality, 'universal self-consciousness' deals with its practical aspect. To put it roughly, in the forms of spirituality and virtues quoted above what is important is that the judgements as to the practical value of actions and states of affairs are made from a universal view-point. Insofar as the subject is conscious of actions and events from the point of view of their universal value, acceptability or rightness, it is universal self-consciousness. It is consciousness as self-consciousness in the same way than self-consciousness1 and self-consciousness2 are consciousnesses as self-consciousness: its intentional correlates of consciousness are for it what they are as represented by its representative activity. It is only that the representative activity of consciousness as self-consciousness3 does not anymore have any particularistic 'colouring'. It actually takes objects as they are universally, from any point of view. But is anything like this a real possibility for humans? We could imagine a purely universal consciousness that always attends to the world from a purely universal point of view. The practical aspect of a purely universal consciousness (as self-consciousness) would be someone who actually pays attention to actions and events only form the point of view of 5. UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 154 Something like this is implied by Manfred Frank's interpretation of 'universal selfconsciousness' (see Frank 1991, pp . 462-463). 85 their universal practical acceptability (goodness, rightness etc). The theoretical aspect would be someone who is conscious of the theoretical features of the world only as they are from a universal point of view. Does Hegel say that somehow after renouncing or sublating the particular determinations of consciousness the master and servant transform into consciousnesses which have nothing left of particularity?154 Do they transform into gods? No. Even if certainly one point of universal self-consciousness – i.e. selfconsciousness3 – is to account for the fact that we can become habituated in taking the world from a universal point of view, this does not mean that nothing of particularity would be left. The point is only that on a cultivated level of consciousness, also this attitude is present. Self-consciousness3 is hence only one moment of a fully developed consciousness as self-consciousness. In the case of real concrete subjectivities the different levels of selfconsciousness1, 2 and 3 can have different relative strength. If we look this from the practical side, it is a matter of upbringing and habituation whether someones attention is mostly directed to the desirability of objects for himself, for others or the community, or from a universal point of view. The point of Hegel's philosophy of objective spirit is to show how all of these levels of intentionality can in principle be reconciliated. In an ideal society I can, depending on the issue and situation, intend the world or something in the world as what it is for me, to us, or in general. Looked at from the theoretical side, a merely universal consciousness of the theoretical aspects of the world – which is the topic in 'Understanding' – is no more a real possibility, than a purely universal practical consciousness is. As I said, I take it that the lawfulness to which Hegel points in 'Understanding', means generally that what in things is 'necessary', and hence the, according to Hegel, necessary determinations that are discusses in his logic. Even if I'm deeply versed in Hegelian philosophy and habituated in my everyday dealings in attending to what in things is 'logical', and hence in taking things from – what I as a Hegelian take to be – a purely universal point of view, I still have to be sensitive also to the qualitative richness of the world, to more or less contingent events and actions around me and also able to subsume things around me under the genus-concepts that happen to be used in my society. The world simply is much too complicated to be taken 5. UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WORLD 155 I thank Arto Laitinen for stimulating ideas on the absurdity of a purely universa l consciousness which I however could not use for reasons of courtesy. 86 from a purely universal point of view which only catches the necessary features of it. Or take a philosopher of mind who thinks that the universal, viewpoint-neutral truth of humans is that they are nothing else than immensely complicated mechanisms strictly functioning according to causal laws. This person, let's call him the mechano-friek, is an even more sorrowful case than someone who tries to do only with Hegel's logic in his takings of the world. Namely, his allegedly universal mechanistic way of 'taking the world' offers very little for really organizing the world of his experience. He can try to take what others take as a red thing as something like 'the kind of thing that causes 170 Hz vibrations in my C-fibres'. Or he can try take the actions of his wife, which others take as attempts to arouse his husbands attention to the misery of their marriage, as effects of a reduced level of hormone X in her cerebellum (or what ever). You can imagine the rest, but the point is that a lot more is needed for organizing the content of intentions than merely some allegedly universal lawful features of objects (and actions) in the world.155 Another, but related, question is, does Hegel's conception of universal self-consciousness leave room for anything like the social negotiationprocedure that according to Brandom is the whole point of mutual recognition. This question I will consider in the end of the next chapter. 87 6. Consciousness of oneself as object and subject among others: s e l fc o n s c io u s n e s s 4 So far I haven't said anything about an explicitly reflective consciousness, that is, of consciousness of oneself as either an object among other objects, or as a subject among other subjects? Yet, this is what usually is meant by self-consciousness. I will call this more familiar sense of self-consciousness from now on self-consciousness4. Quite a lot has been written on Hegel's possible views on this issue but mostly by relying on the Jena Phenomenology of Spirit. Yet, since the function of PS is not to develop anything like a theory of self-consciousness of empirical subjects, the fact that anything decisive has not been attained is not a surprise. The obvious place to look for Hegel's theory of self-consciousness in the familiar philosophical sense is his philosophy of subjective spirit. Perhaps the reason for the fact that there are not yet many attempts to clarify Hegel's theory of self-consciousness4 in PSS is that there is not yet any overall consensus on even the structure of Hegel's argumentation in PSS. The 'Phenomenology'-section of PSS which contains the subsection with the title 'Self-consciousness' seems especially difficult for interpretation. However, according to my reading what Hegel calls 'self-consciousness' in the 'Self-consciousness'subsection is not (at least primarily) even meant to be an analysis of selfconsciousness4 but rather accounts of different developmental levels of consciousness or intentionality in general. But if this is so, does Hegel then in PSS formulate at all anything like a theory of self-consciousness4? And if he does, is it liable to the problems of the reflection-theories pointed out by Frank and Henrich? The answer to the first question is yes and no. No in the sense that there is no one phenomenon or structure that in Hegel's account could be identified as self-consciousness4 and no one reflective act which would establish self-consciousness4.Yes, because many different levels and aspects of theoretical and practical self-relation or selfhood are being discussed in PSS. I will divide these aspects into the non-intentional and the intentional. In fact the non-intentional levels are in Hegel's terminology not yet consciousness and therefore strictly speaking they should not be called selfconsciousness. The word Hegel uses in the 'Anthropology' is self-feeling (Selbstgefühl). I will in the following discuss this non-intentional level only in relation to the intentional ones. The intentional levels of self-relation I will 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 156 § 418: "Die räumliche und zeitliche Einzelheit [...] den Gegenstand des sinnlichen Bewusstseins [...] gehört eigentlich dem Anschauen an." § 418 Z: "Die dem Sinnlichen eigentümlichen Form [...] das Aussereintreten in Raum und Zeit, ist die (wie wir § 448 sehen werden) von der Anschauung erfasste Bestimmung des Objek ts." 88 divide into A) consciousness of oneself as an object among other objects, B) consciousness of oneself as a subject among other subjects, and C) consciousness of oneself as a person with personal features. A) Now, what does it require to be conscious of oneself as a material object in the world and in the midst of other objects? We may approach this question by considering the being in the world of a desiring animal. Does its consciousness involve something like this kind of self-consciousness in Hegel's account? I seems that Hegel's answer is negative. Certainly the ability to discern one's own body from the rest of the material world is part of the outfit of a desiring animal since its own body is not among the Gegenstände of its desire. Hegel discusses the issues involved in the bodily synthesis of sensations in the 'Anthropology.' This distinction is however still a very primitive one since it only separates the lived body from everything else and does not necessarily imply the ability to grasp ones own body as an ordinary material thing among other material things in space. Now, it would seem that this theme poses a problem for my interpretation of the overall structure of PSS. Namely, I have claimed that in 'Psychology' Hegel analyses the activity of constituting intentional content for consciousness. This implies that whatever Hegel says of the spatial determinations of the constitution of this content in the 'Psychology' should be found in the form of spatial determinations of objects for consciousness in the 'Phenomenology'. Yet at least at first sight this seems not to be the case. Namely, Hegel says explicitly in § 418 that objects are not (at least) for 'sensuous consciousness' spatially organized and that the spatial organization belongs properly on the level of 'intuition', that is, to 'Psychology'.156 However, I think that this should really be interpreted as meaning only that the world is not yet spatially organized for the level of the singular consciousness analyzed in 'sensuous consciousness' (and 'desire'). Although Hegel does not say it explicitly, I take it to be obvious that 'Perception' and 'Understanding' in the 'Phenomenology' do imply spatiality. What does Hegel then say about the spatial organization of objectivity for the subject in 'Psychology'? First of all, for Hegel space and time are not 'only forms of intuition' as they are for Kant: "The truth is that things are themselves spatial and temporal" (§ 448 Z). Hegel refers here to his philosophy of nature where he analyzes spatiality and temporality as real 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 157 See PS, §§ 95-110. 158 "In der Diremption dieses unm ittelbaren Findens ist das eine Moment die abstracte identische Richtung d es Geistes im Ge fühle wie in all en andere n seiner w eiteren Bestimmungen, die Aufmerksamkei t ohne welche nich ts für ihn ist; -die tätige Erinnerung, das Mom ent des Seinigen, aber als die noch formelle Selbstbestimmung der Intell igenz. Das andere Moment ist , dass sie gegen diese ihre Innerlichkeit die Gefühlsbest immungen als e in Seiendes, aber als e in Negatives , a ls das abstrakte Anderssein seiner selbst setzt. Die Intell igenz bestim mt hiermit den Inhalt der Empfindung als ausser sich Seiendes, wirft ihn in Raum und Zeit hinaus, welche die Formen sind, worin sie anscha uend ist. Nach dem Bewusstsein ist der Stoff nur Gegenstand desse lben , re lat ives Anderes ; von dem Geiste aber erhält er die vernünft ig e Bestimm ung, das Andere seiner selbst zu sein (vgl. § 247, 254)." 89 forms of world (see §§ 254-259). Hence what he says about spatiality and temporality in § 448 in the 'Psychology' is an account only of how the subject becomes conscious of the world as spatially and temporally structured. I will now pass over the question of temporality and discuss only that of spatiality in the 'Psychology'. No explicit treatment of becoming consciousness of oneself as an object or a thing among other things in space can be found from § 448 where Hegel discusses spatiality, but his discussion seems to have implications also regarding this question. Clearly what Hegel means by space here is 'objective space', that is, the spatial determinations of objects from no special point of view inside space. In this respect Hegel's discussion of space and time in PSS differs considerably from PS where he discussed only the egocentric spatial determination of 'here' in the chapter on 'Sensecertainty'.157 The text of § 448 in PSS goes: One moment in the diremption o f this immediate finding is the abstract identical direction of spirit in both feeling and all the rest of i ts further determinations, attention without which nothing is for it; – the active recollection, the momen t of appropriation, however still as a formal self-determination of intelligence. The other moment is that intelligence posits the determinations of feeling against this its inwardness as a being, but as a negative, as the abstract otherness of itself. Intelligence therefore determines the content of sensation as being self-external, projects it in space and t ime, which are the forms within which intelligence is intuitive. According to consc iousness the material is simply its Gegenstand , but from spirit it receives the rational determination of being other to itself (cf. § 247, 254).158 We should first consider what is the function of attention in respect of spatiality of object for the subject. I have already discussed attention in connection to the subsumation of singulars under universals. There we saw that it is the 'interests' of intelligence as the 'concrete subjectivity' that 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 159 DeVries 1988, p. 112. 160 Idem. 161 DeVries himself notes that his reading seems to be explicitly against Heg el's statements in the Zusatz of § 448 (idem). 90 directs attention to certain features of objects and hence determines under what universal the subject orders the given object. Does attention then have also a function in the spatial ordering of the world for the subject. Willem DeVries notes this possibility in his comments to § 448: "attention is apparently conceived of as the mental activity through which experience receives its spatiotemporal form"159. Yet, he thinks that this is only an appearance and not really Hegel's view: "This view would seem to make the constitution of the spatiotemporal world of our experience something we do by paying attention either to our feelings or sensations or to the objects of experience, and this seems patently false."160 I will not try to analyze in detail DeVries's reasons for this judgement, but only note that I do not see any compelling ones.161 As I see it, attention really can be understood as a necessary function in the process of constituting a spatially ordered world for the subject. Especially in the Zusatz to § 448 Hegel emphasizes that attention involves taking the object as something that "is not only for me, but has also an independent being". Although Hegel does not in this connection explicitly talk about the 'concreteness' of the subjectivity or intelligence, I believe that it is something implicitly present also here. Here again Hegel's view differs considerably from that of Kant. Whereas for Kant spatiality is produced by the transcendental subjectivity that is independent from the empirical one, for Hegel the spatial organization of the world for the subject is necessarily connected to the fact that the subject is an empirical or 'concrete' subject already somewhere in space and has to understand the viewpoint-neutral ordering of space from that place. Here Hegel's ontological realism frees his from the problems that haunt Kant's subjective idealism. For Hegel there is nothing subjective in the fact that objects exist somewhere in space and hence also not in the fact that any individual subject does so totally independently of whether it has any grasp of objective space and his location in it. Thus there is no transcendental subject 'situating' things (and hence also the empirical ego) in space and that way producing the spatial ordering of the world for the subject. I propose that a plausible reading is that the subject grasps objective space by paying attention to the relative locations of objects given in its 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 91 experience and by recollecting these relative locations learns their locations not only as, or where, they are "for me" from a given momentary point of view but where they are from any point of view. Since the subject is a concrete living being, it moves around in space and therefore is able to change its point of view in space. Through this simple process of learning places in the world the subject grasps objects in the world as having "independent being" somewhere in space that is independent from any momentary the point of view of the subject. There are certainly difficult philosophical problems involved here and Hegel does not develop this theme in its whole extent but still the function of attention in the process of spatial ordering of the world for the subject seems to be quite easy to understand. As well as in the case of subsuming singulars under universals, also here the process at least necessarily does not have to be a very conscious one. It is part of the ordinary being in the world of the concrete subject where learning mostly happens, as it were, automatically. In becoming habitual, the locating of objects determines the intentional correlates of consciousness as spatially indexed. In the ordinary course of the socializing process in developed societies the means for understanding space and one's own location in space are of course partly already existing: we have maps to show where things are and where I am as one thing. So the process of the becoming of spatial organization of objects for a given subject does not rest solely on the shoulders of every new subject. But disregarding this point a deeper issue is, is there something in the intersubjective relation as such that somehow develops the ability to know oneself as an object among objects in space. If there is, then the place in PSS to look for something like it would obviously be the encounter of subjects in the 'Recognitive self-consciousness'-chapter. Although nothing very explicit on this issue can be found there, perhaps much could be read in it by considering what is implied by Hegel's text. Again I think that whatever might be the position implied by Hegel's explicit formulations, the subjective processes or abilities necessary for the becoming of spatial organization of the world for subjects have to read from the 'Psychology'. If subjects are, as they are, capable of understanding themselves as spatially located in some position in the singular or momentary point of view of another subject, this capability has to be anyway part of the natural makeup of subjects and this capability most probably is not isolated from the general capability of grasping relative locations in space. Hence, if the claim that Hegel's theory of self-consciousness is liable to the problems of reflection points to his view of consciousness of oneself as an 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 162 I believe that intersubjective mediation is in fact a decisive factor also in this question. I will discuss the relation of intersubjectivity and objective space in PSS in a future work. 92 object in space among other subjects and as such also as an object for other subjects, then I do not think Hegel is in trouble. There is nothing to suggest that Hegel thinks that the capabilities needed for becoming conscious of oneself as an object for other subjects did not exist before, and independently of, the intersubjective encounter. What comes to the fact that Hegel emphasizes the lack of spatial organization of objectivity for 'sensuous consciousness', I do not think that he still thought that there were no spatial organization of objectivity for the higher levels of consciousness. If for example 'perception' is, as Hegel says, the level of our everyday consciousness and sciences, then surely this presupposes that the world on this level is already spatially organized. And this has to mean that on this level subjects are able to grasp themselves as objects in space located among other objects. For reasons that undoubtedly need more clarification, Hegel does not think that the actual intentional correlates of the singular subject of sensuous consciousness have an objective spatial organization.162 Yet this does not mean that they was in principle devoid of the psychological capacities needed for objective spatial organization of the world for it. B) Now what about self-consciousness4 as consciousness of oneself as a subject among other subjects? What is it to be conscious of the fact than one is a subject? I will pass over the question of the practical aspect of this, that is, of the question of being conscious of being a subject of one's actions. The theoretical issue can be formulated as the question of what it is to be conscious of being conscious? Consciousness in Hegel's account is more than simply having sensations. Consciousness is intentional and hence it is having sensations as sensations of something gegenständlich. Does having consciousness in this sense imply also of being consciousness of consciousness? This is more or less the question that staged Cramer's reading of § 424. My claim was that this is actually not the question that is being discussed in § 424. Yet, certainly something like being conscious of being conscious is implied by Hegel's concept of consciousness. Namely, because being conscious is having conceptually structured intentional correlates, it implies the possibility of being mistaken about what it is that one is conscious of. What is given for the conscious subject is given as something, as having 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 163 DeVries explicates the possibilities of illusion, hallucination and madness as states where the construction of objec ts fail so that what the subject mistakes as an intuition, is in fact only a mere representation (DeVries 1988, p. 123). I believe the same holds for any mistakes in perception according to Hegel's picture. I take something as something and really in tuit it as what I take it, but if I have mistaken the object, what was for me an intui tion was in fact only a 'mere representation'. 164 McDowell 1996, p. 12. 93 certain properties and other features which can function as the basis of subsuming it under universals. I see something and it seems red to me and thus I subsume it under the universal or of redness, or in other words take it to belong to the class of red things. It also appears to have certain other features that to my experience are instantiated by, lets say, buses of the Jyväskylä traffic company. Thus I not only subsume it under the sensuous universal of redness but also under the genus-concept of bus. But then this something that I took to be a bus – because it seems and sounds like a bus to me – comes closer and I realize that it is in fact a truck. Perhaps it is not even red although in the given lighting-conditions it seemed red from a distance. Thus I had as the content of my intention a bus – strictly speaking I was conscious of this something as a bus – but yet it turned out that the intentional content of my consciousness did not correspond with what the thing in reality is.163 What ever are the features that one is habituated in attending to in objects and what ever are the genus-concepts that one has for objects, and how ever limited generally is the store of concepts of a given subject, consciousness as involving, as McDowell puts it, "passive operation of conceptual capacities"164 is liable to mistakes and contains also the capability of correcting mistakes when the world itself shows that one were mistaken. Or in Hegel's terms, being conscious implies the conceptual activity of representation which is an activity, although unconscious, of the concrete subjectivity and as such liable to mistakes. One type of mistake is of course being mistaken about the relative locations of objects in space, one of them being oneself. In this sense the spatial determinations of representations are responsible to the world in the same way than all the rest of them. It is in this normativity-involving sense that being conscious involves the capability to distinguish consciousness of something (as something) from that thing itself. In this sense even animals seem to be conscious of being conscious since they can learn that what (or where) they took something to be is not what (or where) it is. But this is not yet being conscious of oneself as consciousness or subject among other consciousnesses or subjects. I have claimed that 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 165 The object may of course be also either one of the combatants: A takes B as food for itself but B does not take itself as food for B etc. 94 something like this kind of explicitly reflective self-consciousness is lacking in the mode of consciousness as self-consciousness that Hegel discusses in § 424 – precisely because it is a singular mode of consciousness not yet mediated by others consciousnesses. Is it then in recognition that something like consciousness of oneself as consciousness among other consciousnesses arises? This is Frank's and Henrich's claim and I do not think that it is totally mistaken. However I think that the discussion on whether Hegel is a reflection-theorist and whether he is liable to the problems involved in reflection-theories remains quite abstract if we do not pay attention first to the fact that self-consciousness4 is only one of the meanings of 'self-consciousness' in PSS, and secondly to the normative issues involved in the view on self-consciousness4 that seems to be implied by Hegel's text. The first point I have tried to show in the previous chapters of this work. The question of self-consciousness4 I have then divided to the question of being consciousness of oneself as an object in space among other objects, and to the question of being conscious of oneself as a subject or consciousness. Now, if consciousness of the world as such implies consciousness of consciousness because of the possibility of error and the capability to learn that one has made an error – that is, because of the essentially normative character of consciousness – what does normativity have to do with being conscious of oneself as one consciousness among other consciousnesses? I would put it this way. Consciousness as such is normatively enforced by the world. But being conscious of the world as a social animal is normatively enforced not only by the world but also by other consciousnesses. These two levels or 'directions' of normativity could be called vertical and horizontal normativity respectively. An example: a singular animal 'takes' something to be food for it, and whether it is food for it is decided by the world – this is vertical normativity. On the other hand a subject living among other subjects may similarly take something as food for itself and hence subsume a given thing under the universal 'food for me'. But there is another subject similarly taking the same thing as food for itself. There is a fight the point of which is, is the thing 'food for subject A' or 'food for subject B'. If the other subject dies, the contradiction has been "crudely" (see § 432, 434) solved.165 Another solution is that one of the parties, say A, surrenders and assents to taking the thing as 'food for B'. Or then there is 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 95 a happier solution where both A and B take the thing to be 'food for us'. If A surrenders and takes the thing to be 'food for B', it has recognized the validity of B's representation of the thing. If both take the thing to be 'food for us', they have mutually recognized the validity of each others representations of the thing. The point of this example can be generalized to hold for socially mediated consciousness in general. In being conscious of the world as social beings, our intentional correlates are mediated through other consciousnesses, that is, we take at least a great deal of singulars we encounter in our everyday dealings not only as what they are 'for me' but what they are 'for us' or 'for anybody' and this way our consciousness is under horizontal normative control. Because the process of representation responsible for producing actual intentional content is mostly unconscious and habitual, it may be that I am not actually conscious at all of what a given object would be purely for myself irrespectively from the socially accepted and enforced way of taking it as. But insofar as I am, I am conscious of my own consciousness as distinct from that of others. This is to say, that being conscious of one's own consciousness as one consciousness among other consciousnesses is being conscious of the particularity of one's own way of 'taking objects as'. Insofar as I am conscious of the difference between my own 'takings as' and those of others and recognize the validity or claim of those other takings, I submit myself to the horizontal social normativity. Yet, what ever are the socially shared and negotiated ways of taking the world, they are in principle controlled by the vertical normativity of the world itself. To use Quine's metaphors, the world has an almost infinite number of joints at which it can be carved. Still, the fact that it has joints means that it imposes normative control over ways of carving it. We may now answer the question of whether something like consciousness of ones own consciousness among and as distinct from other consciousnesses arises in the process which Hegel depicts in 'Recognitive self-consciousness'. Obviously in the conflict between consciousnesses, both of which have their particular way of 'taking' objects, the difference of the consciousnesses is implicitly thematized for the combatants. In principle this difference in the ways of taking as can evaporate to a very large extent as the servant becomes habituated in taking everything from the point of view of the master. Yet, since the intentional correlates of consciousness to some extent are necessarily dependent on singular point of view, the difference cannot totally vanish. A trivial example: Even if I and my 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 166 I refer here to the "taking possession of, preservation and forming" the servant mentioned by Hegel in § 434. 96 master both take something to be food, danger, shelter (or what ever) for the master and I am so habituated in attending to the world only as what it is for my master, that I am not actually even conscious of what it would be for me, I am still conscious of that something, for example, as being to the left from me but to the right from the master. At least in this trivial sense the qualitative difference of consciousnesses is always present for social subjects, and at least in this sense they are always conscious of being one consciousness among others. Yet, this situation does not as such imply any social horizontal normativity for deciding the correctness of my representations, it is the vertical normativity imposed on me by the world itself that restricts my representations of the relative location of objects from my spatial point of view and that of my master (or whoever I am facing). In a less trivial sense the subjects depicted in the chapter 'Recognitive self-consciousness' become conscious of being consciousnesses among other consciousnesses insofar as there are discrepancies between the ways of 'taking as' between the subjects and insofar as they are conscious of these discrepancies. In being conscious of the fact that what I take an object as is not what another (or others) takes it as, I am conscious of my consciousness as a particular way of taking the object. In the relation of the master and the slave it is the consciousness of the master that provides the criteria for correct takings, and hence the particularities of the master's consciousness are the source of the horizontal normativity constraining the consciousness of the servant. If the servant is not totally socialized to the master's point of view, that is, if the master has not absolutely succeeded in his attempts to "form" (formieren )166 his servant, the servant is conscious of the difference of his consciousness from that of his master's and in this sense conscious of oneself as consciousness against another consciousness. In the previous chapter I depicted 'universal self-consciousness', i.e. self-consciousness3, as a level of consciousness where the intentional correlates of consciousness have only features that are available only for a purely universal point of view. In § 438 which is the first paragraph of the 'Reason'-chapter, Hegel characterizes this level in the following way: [...] The universality of reason has [...] as well the meaning of an Objekt that as such is merely given in c onsciou sness, yet itself now universal, pervading and 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 167 "[...] Die Allgemeinheit der Vernunft hat daher ebensosehr die Bedeutung des im Bewusstse in a l s so lchem nur gegebenen, aber nun selbst al l g emeinen , das Ich durchdringenden und befassenden Objekts , als des reinen Ich , der über das Objekt übergre ifenden und es in sich befassenden reinen Form." 97 encompassing the I, as [it has the meaning] of the pure I, a pure form that includes and encompasses the Objekt within itself.167 Thus, now there is a purely universal Objekt given for a purely universal consciousness or 'I'. Here Hegel recapitulates what has been reached on the one hand in 'Understanding' and on the other hand in 'Universal selfconsciousness', that is the theoretical and practical aspects of self-consciousness3. Both the theoretical and the practical moments of intentionality are now purely universal. In § 423, which is the last paragraph in 'Understanding', Hegel characterizes the relation of the universal theoretical subject to it Objekt as a "Differenz der keiner ist"and in § 437 which is the last paragraph in 'Universal self-consciousness' he characterizes the relation of the practical subject to the world as an "Unterschied, der keiner ist". The point of these identical (since as far as I see, 'Differenz' and 'Unterschied' are here simply synonyms) expressions is that on the universal level, there is a numerical difference between consciousness and the world (as on all levels), but since consciousness does not have any more any particular limitations, there is no more any qualitative difference between the world as a Gegenstand of consciousness and the world as Objekt, that is, between what is given for consciousness and what that given is in itself. Three general points are worth making here: a) 'Understanding' and 'Universal self-consciousness' are both followed by 'Reason' and hence the developments of 'Consciousness as such' and 'Self-consciousness' are aspects of one and the same development, as I stated in chapter 1. b) 'Reason' in 'Phenomenology' is still 'only consciousness' and not activity. It is a level of intentionality on which what is given is produced by the psychological processes analyzed in 'Psychology'. Thus reason as activity produces, or organizes content for reason as consciousness. Now, the picture of a universal subjectivity facing a universal Object seems to efface all traces of particularity and at first sight may lead one wondering whether Hegel is talking here at all of real empirical subjects. If he is, have the many subjects by some miraculous processes become mere instantiations of one absolute subjectivity effortlessly facing the world as it is in itself from no particular point of view? This would make the level of self-consciousness3 very different than what Brandom takes to be the point 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 168 See also §368 Zusatz. Many of the articles in Horstmann/Petry (ed.) 1986 deal with Hegel's relation to the discussions on classification of nature. 98 of universal recognition. Is there any room left for the processes of conceptual negotiation that Brandom depicts? I think there is. c) Namely, reason as the synthesis of the theoretical and practical aspects of universal consciousness as self-consciousness, i.e. of self-consciousness3, is only a moment of concrete consciousness since singularity and particularity discussed in the earlier chapters of 'Consciousness as such'and 'Self-consciousness'-subsections are in some form necessary moments of any real consciousness that has achieved universality (as its third moment), even if their relative significance or 'power' in directing and organizing the subjects theoretical and practical intentions may vary from subject to subject (and from culture to culture). It may be that pure universality is a real possibility in some issues. Hegel certainly seems to have thought that it is possible in the kind of analysis of the most generals structures of reality and thinking that he practices in his logic. (Most philosophers nowadays of course doubt even this.) Yet, its very clear that as soon as we leave the sphere of logic and enter on the field of the kind of philosophy that he practices in his Realphilosophie, things get much fuzzier. Hegel was simply too well versed – more so than probably any philosopher today could be – in the natural and human sciences of his day to have been under the illusion that there would be one definite way to organize all the results, findings and viewpoints of sciences by philosophical treatment, that is, that there would be the definite way of 'taking the world' even on this relatively high level of generality of the sciences. One simple example: Hegel never thought that anything like a definite taxonomy of natural formations would be possible. In § 368 of his philosophy of nature he discusses extensively of the natural scientific work on classification of animals of antique and his own time and very explicitly notes, as he puts it, "the impotence of the Concept in nature" to organize the animal forms into definite genera and species. The natural sciences of his day were well developed enough for Hegel to note that "even the genera [of animals] are completely subject to the changes of the external, universal life of nature".168 But not are genera only subject to natural changes, they are also at least to some extent negotiable. In § 459 in 'Psychology' Hegel discusses language and notes that the signification system of a developed language requires the relative easiness of forming 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 169 "Das allgemeine Selbstbewusstsein ist das affirmativ e Wissen seiner selbst in anderen Selbst, deren jedes als freie Einzelheit absolute Selbständigkeit hat, aber, vermöge der Negation seiner Unmittelbarkeit oder Begierde, sich nicht vom anderen unterscheidet, allgemeines [Selbstbewusstsein] und objektiv ist und sie reelle Allgemeinheit als Gegenseitigkeit so hat, als es im freien anderen sich anerkannt w eiss und dies weiss , insofern es das andere anerkenn t und es f rei weiss ." 99 new signs as, for example, developments in "chemistry and mineralogy" produces new genera, that is, when the classifications of sciences are "altered in accordance with the difference of view with regard to the genus and other supposed specific property". It is only "a stationary civilization, like the Chinese"that can do with a hieroglyphic written language since the ways of 'taking the world' in a stationary civilization are stagnant, not under negotiation, and hence the relative difficulty of forming new written signs does not matter. No new signs are needed since no new concepts arise. I believe that what holds for natural sciences and their philosophical treatment, holds also for human sciences and the philosophical treatment of man in Hegel's system. Here I only point to M.J.Petry's note, which I referred already in my introduction, of the fact that the philosophy of subjective spirit is too full of findings and phenomena of the human sciences and common sense, and also went through considerable re-orderings, for anyone to think that Hegel ever believed that an absolutely definite logical account of the structures of subjective spirit would be possible. I do not think that there's anything in principle against the grain of Hegel's own thought to suggest even that much of Hegel's presentation in PSS is coloured by his own interests and more or less idiosyncratic habits of ordering his material. When we then move further on to the theoretical and practical level of everyday life, it's clear that our ways of taking or 'carving up' the world are socially constrained and, to the extent that we live in open enough social environments, under social negotiation processes. For these processes really to take place, mutual recognition of consciousnesses is however necessary. In § 436 Hegel formulates the level of universal self-consciousness as a level of mutual recognition in the following way: Universal self-consciousness is the affirmative knowing of one's self in an other self. Each self has as a free individuality absolute independen ce, but on accoun t of the negation of its immediacy or desire does no t differentiate itself from the other. Each is thus universal [self-consciousness] and objective and possesses real universa lity as reciprocity, so far as it know s itself recognized by its free o ther, and knows th is insofar as it recognizes the other and knows it to be free .[...]169 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 100 This is now what forms "the substance of all essential spirituality, the family, the native country, the state, as well as all virtues, – of love, friendship, courage, honour and fame" (§ 436). If we emphasize only the universality of consciousnesses on the level of universal self-consciousness, that is, only the extent to which consciousnesses on this level actually intend the world in qualitatively identical manner in all areas of life, we cannot understand how Hegel can then say anything about the essentially particularity-involving phenomena of spirit and virtues. Neither can we understand what all this has to do with freedom and mutual recognition. The proper place for Hegel's discussion of the above mentioned forms of 'essential spirituality' and virtues is of course the philosophy of objective spirit, the discussion of which is far beyond the scope of this work. Here I can only suggest a very general point. The point of mutual recognition as characterized by Hegel in § 436 is that social phenomena such as virtues necessitate that subjects are in principle open to each others judgements as to the correctness, validity, virtuousness etc. of each others intentions. Thus the contents of practical intentions are constrained by the intersubjective horizontal normativity which however is open to negotiation to the extent that subjects mutually recognize each other as in principle universal and free judges. In the context of the philosophy of objective spirit this means that even if contents of intentions are to some extent 'uniformed' by Sittlichkeit, yet in many, or most, areas of life difference of views is inevitable and there intentions have to be negotiated by subjects mutually recognizing each other as concerned parties and in principle competent and responsible judges of each other's intentions. On the theoretical side of intentionality negotiations are also inevitable because of the simple fact that the world allows it to be taken in a multitude of ways. All these ways are responsible to the world and hence constrained by vertical normativity. But first of all since it is necessary for social animals to have shared ways of understanding the world, and secondly since some of the ways serve the shared interests of communities better than others, we are constrained also by the social horizontal normativity in our theoretical undertakings. Insofar as mutual recognition of the validity and freedom of each others consciousness prevails, the question of what ways of carving the world best serve the shared interests of the community of concrete subjectivities, is open to negotiation. C) Finally, the question of self-consciousness4 as knowledge, beliefs or views of ones personal features. By this I mean self-consciousness as having contents that are of the type 'what kind of person I am'. This is the 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 170 As I am writing this, Honneth's new book on Hegel's Philosophy of Right has not yet appeared. According to advance information it discusses recognition in the context of the Philosophy of Right. 171 "Aber das Se lbstge fühl, das ihm in der Befriedigung wird [...]" 172 For a more thorough account of 'self-feeling' see Siep 1990. 101 aspect or meaning of self-consciousness that Honneth is interested in Hegel's earlier writings. For Honneth recognition in Hegel's writings from the Jena period points to (more or less) the same phenomena than what G.H. Mead means by the constitution of the object-I, or as Mead says of the self (in contrast to I as subject) in social interaction. It is through receiving adequate and fair recognition from relevant others for ones needs for care and love as a singular being, for ones autonomy, and for the worth of ones traits and abilities, that one is able to have satisfying answers to the question 'what kind of person I am'. I need recognition from others for construing a satisfying image of myself as a person. Does PSS contain anything of relevance for discussions of selfconsciousness4 in this sense? Not much, since the proper place for Hegel's discussion of these issues is the philosophy of objective spirit.170 Yet enough, since the point of the 'Phenomenology' is only to analyze levels or aspects of intentionality on a general level and something like the mode of intentionality that self-consciousness4 in this sense requires is accounted for there. Although I do not have the opportunity to develop this theme adequately here, I suggest that it is the concept of 'self-feeling' (Selbstgefühl) that is the place to look for self-consciousness4 in this sense in PSS. In the 'Anthropology' Hegel dedicates a whole chapter to the theme of selffeeling. What I want to emphasize is that 'self-feeling' clearly contains a normative dimension. This can be seen in the 'Self-consciousness'-subsection explicitly in two passages. First in § 429, which was the last paragraph on 'desire' Hegel says that the desiring consciousness has or "receives" its self-feeling in "satisfaction".171 Self-feeling as analyzed in the 'Anthropology' contains more than what Hegel discusses here172, but what Hegel here points to is that the self-feeling of the concrete subjectivity is goal-directed and receives its fulfilment in the attainment of the goal. In the case of the singular desiring consciousness the goal is the satisfaction of desire and thus satisfying self-feeling is achieved in the satisfaction of desires. What is interesting is that in the second paragraph on 'recognitive self-consciousness', § 431, which I quoted in my chapter 4 Hegel writes the following: [...] I cannot be recognized as immediate, but only insofar as I sublate the immediacy in myself and give determinate being for my freedom. Yet, this 6. CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONESELF 102 immediacy is at the same time the corporeity of self-consciousness, within which it has as in i ts signs and tools its self-feeling as well as its being for others, and its mediating relation with them. The point in this passage as regards to self-feeling is that self-consciousness cannot be recognized by others if it does not give up the pure immediacy of its being. It has to 'externalize' itself in an acting and signifying body which is understandable to others. It is in or through this externalized and mediated body as the "signs and tools" of self-consciousness, that selfconsciousness has both its "being for others", its "self-feelings" and the "mediating relation between them". This passage certainly deserves a more thorough analysis than I am able to produce now, but I think it contains in a nutshell the structure of intentionality without which nothing like the constitution of the object-I or 'self' through recognition of which Mead and Honneth speak, would not exist. Our being for others and our 'selffeeling' constitute an interrelated structure where the achievement of the goal of self-feeling is mediated through others. This is to say that the satisfaction of the self-feeling of a social subject is dependent on recognition by others and is hence essentially intersubjective. What is important here is the emphasis on feeling. Namely, if the self-relation that is mediated by the recognition of others would be only self-consciousness, it would remain "distant from the concrete subjectivity" (§ 401), that is, it would not affect the motivational factors of subjectivity. But since it is feeling, it affects the motivational make-up of the subject, as it were, from the inside. Hegel does not, as far as I see, say anything explicit in the 'Phenomenology' about our knowledge, beliefs or views of ourselves as persons. So if we want, we are free to 'read in' Hegel's text the best possible theory of self-consciousness4 in this sense that is not contradictory with other elements of his text. I would say that self-consciousness4 as self-knowledge is on the social level intersubjectively mediated more or less the same way than all knowledge is. First of all the concepts that we use in attributing personality-features to ourselves are socially construed. Secondly whether my attribution of some feature to myself is correct is always also for the relevant others to judge. It is however because I myself am most intimately touched by the attributions of features to myself, that self-consciousness4 in this sense is always also a matter of self-feeling. 173 Habermas 1999, p. 149. 103 Conclusion Now its time to try to sort out what is true and what is false in the views on Hegel's conception of self-consciousness and intersubjectivity of the writers I referred to in my introduction. On the whole I have tried to show that what Hegel means by 'self-consciousness' at least in the last version of the Encyclopedia PSS, is mostly not what is usually meant by 'self-consciousness'. That is, self-consciousness1, 2 and 3 are simply consciousness of the world as structured by the representative activity peculiar to each form or level of consciousness. Still, this does not mean that the more familiar meaning of self-consciousness as an explicit reflective relation to oneself were completely absent in PSS. Although Hegel does not waste a lot of paper in PSS to analyze self-consciousness4, it figures at least implicitly in the text in many forms, as I tried to show in the previous chapter. Neither does Hegel's concentration on self-consciousness1, 2 and 3 in any way mean that intersubjectivity would not play an important role in PSS. It is certainly not true as Habermas writes, that in the Encyclopedia the intersubjectivist structure of reciprocal recogn ition is no longer relevant for the mentalistic account of self and self-reflection, given that in the Logic Hegel unfolds the concept in accordance with the model of the 'ego', or of pure selfconsc iousness.173 What ever is the relation of the logic to the philosophy of subjective spirit, something like a "pure self-consciousness" is an extreme abstraction of the way Hegel analyses self-consciousness in PSS. Furthermore, the mediation of consciousnesses in recognition of and by other consciousnesses is not only relevant, but essential in the unfolding of the full structure of consciousness – even if Hegel thinks that consciousness does not exclusively consist of moments that are grounded in intersubjective recognition. It is only if we overemphasize the role of 'universal self-consciousness', i.e. selfconsciousness3, in the overall constitution of consciousness and for some reason want to ignore the moments of self-consciousness1, 2 and 4, that we get something like a "pure self-consciousness" as a picture of what consciousness and self-consciousness in PSS are. CONCLUSION 174 Idem. 175 See Hösle 1987, p. 379. 104 For Habermas PSS as a whole is only a "presentation of the absolute idea"174 unfolding itself in empirical subjects. Here I think Habermas is not sensitive enough to the fact that even if the world as a whole, and subjectivity as part of the constitution of the world, are according to Hegel to be grasped as an interconnected whole that in its most general features follow the logical structure of logic, this in now way removes the necessity for accounting for the concrete life of individual subjects. This I think becomes very clear when one reads PSS with enough sensitivity to what is really going on in it. Hösle's claim according to which Hegel cannot conceptually discern subject-subject-relations from subject-object-relations is, to say the least, unfair if we only pay attention to the complexity of the process of the intersubjective encounter in the 'Phenomenology' and to what is its function for the overall constitution of full subjectivity in PSS. According to Hösle Hegel depicts the whole process of recognition in PSS only as a means for achieving the level of universal self-consciousness or reason.175 Now, it is of course true that without being mediated through other consciousnesses nothing like universality would be available for the subjects in Hegel's picture. But thinking that the intersubjective relations of recognition would somehow vanish when universality (in some issues and in principle) is achieved is like thinking that all the functions analyzed by Hegel under the name 'soul' would vanish when the subject achieves consciousness. We do not lose our souls when we become conscious. And neither do we cease to be dependent on all the complex intersubjective relations that form the fabric of our everyday life and ourselves, when we become capable of universality (in some issues and in principle). I cannot see anything in Hegel's text suggesting that he would have thought otherwise. What about Frank's critique of Hegel as a reflection-theorist? I hope that I have at least managed to show that a lot of work has first to be done to understand what consciousness is in Hegel's picture, before we can approach the question of whether something like the impasses of the reflectionmodel are involved in Hegel's theory of self-consciousness. Consciousness is essentially conceptual as to its content and hence involves also normativity. Since consciousness as a whole is on the social level mediated through other consciousnesses, also self-consciousness4 is – because I am myself CONCLUSION 176 Idem. Emphasis in the original. 177 There is a long discussion in developmental psychology about the differentiatingcapabilities of hum an infan ts, starting from Piaget who held that a newborn is yet without any kind of capabilities for constructing worldly objects out of it's sensations and also for differentiating itself from the world. This view has subsequently received strong criticism. Many o f the articles in Bermudez/Marcel/Eilan (ed.) (1995) touch this issue. For example George Butterworth refers to empirical studie s that show infants to be capab le at a very early stage of their lives of very complex intersubjective interaction, requiring the capability to understand oneself as an object of another subjects intentions (see Butterworth 1995). Hegel was certainly open enough for empirical sciences to have been inte rested in empirical study on this field. And as far as I see, nothing in PSS would contradict saying that the capabil ities needed for grasping oneself as an object are simply innate. 105 one possible intentional correlate among all other possible intentional correlates of my consciousness. Yet, it is not self-evident what is meant by the 'I' or 'myself' as the correlate of self-consciousness. Depending on whether it is one material object in space among other objects in space, oneself as a subject among other subject, or oneself as a person with certain personality-features, we get very different pictures of what might be the specific problem that a reflection-theory involves. On all these levels, Hegel text at least by no way implies that the capabilities for grasping oneself as an object were as such absent before the reflection. It is not true that for Hegel "das Selbst nicht prä-reflective, also nicht vor der Reflexion in fremden Subjekten mit sich bekannt wird"176. What ever kind of familiarity with itself is a prerequisite for achieving a socially mediated consciousness of oneself, it seems to be part of the natural constitution of the instinctive understanding of the subject before the reflection.177 If my exposition of § 424 has proved plausible, then I need not say more about Cramer's reading of it. However, as I showed in the last chapter of this work, something like a consciousness of consciousness is a constituent of consciousness as such, but this has to be understood in connection with the normative constitution of consciousness. To be able to know when one has been mistaken in one's taking of an object, implies that one is able to discern consciousness of a thing from the thing itself. In this sense, even animals have 'consciousness of consciousness'. Yet, this is not what Hegel discusses in § 424. The merit of Hespe's interpretation is to point out that self-consciousness for Hegel is something else than merely a reflection to self. Yet, his way of characterizing self-consciousness as a 'transcendental condition' for consciousness as such, which moreover presupposes intersubjectivity, CONCLUSION 178 McDowell 1996, p. 27. See also Halbig 1999, p. 108. 179 Halbig 1999, p. 113. In this context Halb ig discusses the two meanings of truth in Hegel, 'Wahrheit' and 'Richtigkeit' (see ibidem, pp. 111-116). This differentiation does not however affect the general po int about the principal 'homogeneity' of thought and reality. 106 is misleading as a reading of Hegel. Consciousness as intentionality by no way presupposes intersubjectivity in Hegel's account, although the consciousness of a social animal is socially mediated. The possible Frankian (or Henrichian) critique which I proposed, according to which the subject according to Hespe's picture could never achieve anything like a reflection to itself through other subjects – because there is no intentionality what so ever without or before intersubjectivity – does not apply to Hegel, since intentionality as such is in Hegel's account more primitive than intersubjective mediation. What about McDowell's and Brandom's reading of Hegel? According to McDowell the world as given in our intuitions is conceptually structured and therefore our 'takings' of the world are responsible to the way the world really is given in our intuitions. McDowell seems to be an identity-theorist on the question of truth. That is, for McDowell true (or correct) thoughts or beliefs about the world do not somehow merely 'represent' states of affairs of the world. Thoughts are not representations of states of affairs of the world, but instantiate the same logical structures that the world itself instantiates. This is important for McDowell's attempt to bridge the alleged gap between thought and reality. Namely, if the world and thoughts were somehow radically heterogeneous (if either thoughts were conceptual and the world not, or the world were conceptual but thoughts only representations in some 'other' medium) then the danger of relapsing to the dualist positions McDowell wants to avoid would threaten to return. According to McDowell's picture: there is no ontological gap between the sort of thing one can mean, or generally the sort of thing one can think, and the sort of thing that can be the case. When one thin ks truly, wh at one th inks is what is the ca se. [...] [T]here is no gap between thought, as such, and the world.178 Christoph Halbig has defended a reading according to which Hegel agrees here with McDowell. According to Halbig , also for Hegel reality and thoughts are, or can be, instantiations of the same, that is, instantiations of the same logical structures. For Hegel – so Halbig – "[d]ie Wirklichkeit instantiiert dieselbe begriffliche Struktur wie das erkennende Subjekt".179 McDowell is thus right to see Hegel agreeing with him at least on a general CONCLUSION 180 Brandom 1999, p. 178. 181 Neither probably does McDowell. He opposes Kant's picture of the 'thing itself' behind concep tually structured ways of taking the w orld, but nevertheless see ms to want to evade the question whether it really is the world itself that is conceptually structured , or whe ther it is only the world as given in our intuition. It is inevitably the ontological question that has to answe red if one wants to exorcize thought-worlddualisms. 107 level. Robert Brandom has however emphasized that McDowell's picture of the epistemic openness of subjects to the world has to be supplemented by taking into account the intersubjective determination of the space of reasons. And in fact according to Brandom this was originally Hegel's idea. As I proposed in my introduction however, Brandom seems to be undecided about the connection of this socialized picture of the space of reasons to the strong ontological claims that Hegel obviously also makes. Are the following claims compatible or are they not?: 1. The space of reasons, that is, the space of inferential relations which determine the content of concepts, is a social achievement and is socially administered by subjects recognizing each others as competent administers. 2. The spirit (that is, more or less, the space of reasons) has no other; there is nothing outside it. For Brandom they are "of course [...] jointly incompatible"180. But why? As far as I see, they can only be incompatible under the presupposition that a socially construed space of concepts in the end cannot be identical with the structure of the world. Thus Brandom in the end seems to relapse to the dualist picture McDowell wanted to exorcize in the first place. But is this really Hegel's problem? I suspect that Brandom in the end does not want to buy Hegel's ontological realism according to which the world, really, in itself, as such, independently of human made ways of carving it, etc., has a logical structure.181 Is it then perhaps that whereas Brandom does not want to buy the claim number 2., Hegel in the end does not take seriously enough the implications of the claim number 1.? That would be to say that perhaps Hegel does not in the end leave enough room for social construction since claim 2. seems to point to something like a fixed and unnegotiable structure that covers both the world and thinking. According to this picture, all there is left to do for the members in the space of reasons is to find the logical structure of the world and organize their thinking according CONCLUSION 182 I believe this is the alleged Hegelian monster of stagnat ion which kee ps also Habermas, like many others, so suspicious of Hegel. 108 to it. After that has been done there is no more room for the negotiation procedures Brandom is talking about.182 But as I have tried to show, Hegel accounts for a variety of ways of taking the world, all of which are responsible to the world. The richness of the structure of the world allows for a multitude of ways of intending it, ranging from a purely singular desiring consciousness, through socially mediated but still particular consciousnesses, to a universal level of consciousness. On all these levels, consciousness (or "spirit") in a sense "has no other", since the logical constitution of the intentional correlates on all these levels really are instantiations of something belonging to the overall logical structure of the world. The world, to borrow Quine's metaphors again, can be 'carved up' in many different ways according to the needs and interests of concrete subjectivities. That much in the systems of carving the world are under-determined by the general structure of the world, and hence socially negotiable, does not affect the fact that however we represent the world, the contents of our representations have to be instantiations of same logical structures that are instantiated also in the world – that is, if they are meant to be representations of the world as it is. Moreover, we have to remember that the subjects representing the world according to their interest are themselves part of the world, and hence their interests are dependent on how that part of the world that they themselves are is constituted. There is no escape from the world. Finally, someone who wants to know whether there is 'enough or not enough intersubjectivity' in Hegel's picture of the individual subjectivity and its relation to the world, I would give a tentative answer: about the right amount. Appendix: contents of the Encyclopedia Philosophy of Subjective spirit (1830) The subjective spirit/Der subjektive Geist A. Anthropology. The soul./Anthropologie. Die Seele § 388 a. The natural soul./Die natürliche Seele. § 391 α. Natural qualities./Natürliche Qualiteten. § 392 β. Natural alterations./Natürliche Veränderungen. § 396 γ. Sensation./Empfindung. § 399 b. The feeling soul./Die fühlende Seele. § 403 α. Feeling soul in it's immediacy./Die fühlende Seele in ihrer Unmittelbarkeit. § 405 β. Self-feeling./Selbstgefühl. § 407 γ. Habit./Die Gewohnheit. § 409 c. The actual soul./Die wirkliche Seele. § 411 B. Phenomenology of spirit. The consciousness./Die Phänomenologie des Geistes. Das Bewusstsein. § 413 a. Consciousness as such./Das Bewusstsein als solches. § 418 α. Sensuous consciousness./Das sinnliche Bewusstsein. § 418 β. Perception./Das Wahrnehmen. § 420 γ. Understanding./ Der Verstand. § 422 b. Self-consciousness./Das Selbstbewusstsein. § 424 α. Desire./Die Begierde. § 426 β. Recognitive self-consciousness./Das anerkennende Selbstbewusstsein. § 430 γ. Universal self-consciousness./Das allgemeine Selbstbewusstsein. § 436 c. Reason./Die Vernunft. § 438 C. Psychology. The spirit./Psychologie. Der Geist. § 440 a. Theoretical spirit./Der theoretische Geist. § 445 α. Intuition./Anschauung. § 446 β. Representation./Die Vorstellung. § 451 1. Recollection./Die Erinnerung. § 452 2. Imagination./Die Einbildungskraft. § 455 3. Memory./Das Gedächtnis. § 461 γ. Thinking./Das Denken. § 465 b. Practical spirit./Der praktische Geist. § 469 α. Practical feeling./Das praktische Gefühl. § 471 β. Drives and willfullness./Die Triebe und Die Willkür. § 479 γ. Happiness./Die Glückseligkeit. § 479 c. Free spirit./Der freie Geist. § 481 110 Literature Hegel: § Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse 1830. Werke in zwanzig Bänden: 8, 9,10. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 1986. Petry I,II, III Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit. Edited and translated with an introduction and explanatory notes by M.J.Petry. (Bilingual edition with three parts.) D.Reidel Publishing Company 1978-9. PdG Phänomenologie des Geistes. Werke in zwanzig Bänden: 3. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch. PS Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller. Oxford University Press, 1977. PSS Erste Abteilung: Der subjective Geist; §§ 387-485. In: Die Philosophie des Geistes. Werke in zwanzig Bänden: 10. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch. (And Petry I, II, III.) SL Hegel's Science of Logic. Translated by A.V.Miller. Humanity Books 1999. WdL Wissenschaft der Logik. Werke in zwanzig Bänden: 5, 6. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch. Others: Bermúdez, José Luis (1998): The Paradox of Self-Consciousness. MIT Press. Bermúdez, J.L./Marcel, A./Eilan N. (ed.) (1995): The Body and the Self. MIT Press. LITERATURE 111 Brandom, Robert (1995): 'The Social Articulation of the Space of Reasons". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. LV, no. 4, December 1995, pp. 895-908. Brandom, Robert (1999):'Some Pragmatic Themes in Hegel's Idealism: Negotiation and Administration in Hegel's Account of the Structure and Content of Conceptual Norms'. European Journal of Philosophy 7:2 1999, pp. 164-189. Butterworth, George (1995): 'An Ecological Perspective on the Origins of Self'. In Bermúdez, J.L./Marcel, A./Eilan N. (ed.) 1995, pp. 87-106. Chiereghin, Franco (1991): 'Das griechische Erbe in Hegels Anthropologie' in Hespe and Tuschling (ed.) 1991, pp. 9-51. Cramer, Konrad (1979): 'Bewusstsein und Selbstbewusstsein; Vorschläge zur Rekonstruktion der systematischen Bedeutung einer Behauptung Hegels in § 424 der Berliner Encyclopädie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften' in Henrich (ed.) 1979, pp. 215-225. DeVries, Willem (1988): Hegel's Theory of Mental Activity. Cornell University Press Dews, Peter (1995): 'Modernity, Self-consciousness and the Scope of Philosophy; Jürgen Habermas and Dieter Henrich in Debate' in his The Limits of Disenchanment; Essays on Contemporary European Philosophy. Verso, pp. 169-193. Düsing, Edith (1986): Intersubjektivität und Selbstbewusstsein. Behavioristische, phänomenologische und idealistische Begründungstheorien bei Mead, Schütz, Fichte und Hegel. Verlag für Philosophie Jürgen Dinter. Eley, Lothar (ed.) (1990): Hegels Theorie des subjektiven Geistes; in der "Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse". FrommanHolzbook. Fetscher, Iring (1970): Hegels Lehre vom Menschen; Kommentar zu den §§ 387 bis 472 der Enzyklopädie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften. Friedrich Fromman Verlag. LITERATURE 112 Frank, Manfred (1991): 'Subjektivität und Intersubjektivität' in Frank: Selbstbewusstsein und Selbsterkenntnis. Reclam Universal-Bibliotek 1991, pp. 410-477. Greene, Murray (1979): 'Towards a Notion of Awareness'. In Henrich (ed.) 1979, pp. 65-80. Guttenplan, Samuel (1995b): 'An Essay on Mind' in Guttenplan (ed.): Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell, pp. 1-107. Habermas, Jürgen (1999): 'From Kant to Hegel and back – The Move Towards Detranscendentalization'. European Journal of Philosophy 7:2 1999, pp. 129-157. Halbig, Christoph (1999): Objektives Denken, Erkentnistheorie und Philosophy of Mind in Hegels System. Inaugural-Dissertation. Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster. Henrich, Dieter (1966): 'Fichtes ursprungliche Einsicht' in Henrich D./Wagner H. (ed.) (1966): Subjektivität und Metaphysik; Festschrift für Wolfgang Cramer. Vittorio Klostermann, p. 188-232. In English: 'Fichtes Original Insight' in Christensen E./Riedel M./Spaemann R./Wiehl R./Wieland W. (ed.) (1982): Contemporary German Philosophy; Volume I. Pensylvania State University Press. Henrich, Dieter (1970): 'Selbstbewusstsein; Kritische Einleitung in eine Theorie' in Bubner, R. (ed.): Hermeneutik und Dialektik, Bd. 1. J.C.B. Mohr, p. 257-284. In English: 'Self-consciousness; a Critical Introduction to a Theory'. Man and World, vol. 4, No. 1, 1971, pp. 3-28.. Henrich, Dieter (ed.) (1979): Hegels philosophische Psychologie. Hegel-Studien / Beiheft 19. Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann. Hespe, F./Tuschling B. (ed.) (1991): Psychologie und Anthropologie oder Philosophie des Geistes. Frommann-Holzbook. Hespe, Franz (1991): 'System und Funktion der Philosophie des Subjektiven Geistes'. In Hespe/Tuschling (ed.) (1991), pp. 490-521. LITERATURE 113 Honneth, Axel (1995): The Struggle for Recognition; The Moral and Political Grammar of Social Conflicts. Polity Press. (Originally: Kampf um Anerkennung. Suhrkamp 1992.) Horstmann, R.-P./Petry M.J. (ed.) (1986): Hegels Philosophie der Natur; Beziehungen zwischen empirischer und spekulativer Naturerkenntnis. Klett-Cotta. Hösle, Vittorio (1987): Hegels System; Der Idealismus der Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität (two volumes). Felix Meiner Verlag. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1999): Dependent Rational Animals. Open Court. McDowell, John (1995): 'Knowledge and the Internal'. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. LV, no. 4, December 1995, pp. 877-893. McDowell, John (1996): Mind and World. With a new introduction. Harward University Press. (First printing 1994). Nussbaum, M./Rorty A.O. (ed.) (1992): Essays on Aristotle's De Anima. Oxford University Press. Peperzak, Adrian (1991); 'Selbstbewusstsein – Vernunft – Freiheit – Geist'. In Eley (ed.) (1991), pp. 280-312. Quante, Michael (1997): 'Personal Autonomy and the Structure of the Will'. In Kotkavirta, Jussi (ed.): Right, Morality and Ethical Life; Studies on G.W.F. Hegel's Philosophy of Right. SoPhi, Publications of Social and Political Sciences and Philosophy 12, 1997, pp. 45-74. Quante, Michael (1999): 'Common sense-realismi kohtaa absoluuttisen idealismin'. niin & näin, 3/1999, pp. 15-19. Redding, Paul (1996): Hegel's Hermeneutics. Cornell University Press. Siep, Ludwig (1979): Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktischen Philosophie. Karl Alberg. Siep, Ludwig (1990): 'Leiblichkeit, Selbstgefühl und Personalität in Hegels Philosophie des Geistes'. In Eley (ed.) 1990, pp. 203-226. LITERATURE 114 Taylor, Charles (1985): 'Hegel's Philosophy of Mind'. In Taylor: Philosophical Papers 1; Human Agency and Language. Cambridge University Press 1985, pp. 77-96. Weiss, F.G. (1969): Hegel's Critique of Aristotle's Philosophy of Mind. The Hague. Martinus Nijhoff. Wilkes, K.V. (1992): 'Psuch' versus the Mind'. In Nussbaum/Rorty (ed.)(1992), pp. 109-127. 115 Index Brandom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 21-24, 56, 86, 97, 98, 106, 107, 111 Butterworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105, 111 Cramer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15-19, 26, 41, 42, 46, 47, 58, 111, 112 DeVries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 37, 43, 90, 93, 111 Düsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65, 73, 74, 111 Findlay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 11-15, 19, 85, 87, 112 Habermas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 10-12, 14, 70, 103, 108, 111, 112 Halbig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 8, 30, 36, 50, 74, 106, 112 Henrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-15, 19, 87, 111, 112 Hespe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17-19, 25, 34, 35, 49, 64, 111, 112 Honneth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 9, 10, 14, 70, 71, 83, 101, 102, 113 Hösle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 14, 18, 32, 34, 35, 104, 113 Kant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 20, 44, 88, 90, 112 Laitinen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 86 MacIntyre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38, 113 McDowell . . . . . . . . . 2, 8, 19-21, 23, 30, 38, 44, 56, 76, 93, 106, 107, 113 Mead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 14, 71, 101, 102, 111 Peperzak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42, 113 Petry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 6, 38, 39, 41, 67, 70, 71, 79, 98, 110, 113 Quante . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 74, 82, 113 Redding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45, 56, 64, 113 Siep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70, 83, 101,