Journal of the History of Philosophy

Consciousness and Objective Spirit in Hegel's Phenomenology MARK B. OKRENT I. System and Phenomenology In one sense it is a mistake to assert that the Hegelian System has an origin in time. If we take Hegel seriously, then the various objective moments the observation of which comprise the System (i.e., logic, nature, selves, historical events, art, religion, and philosophy) obviously exist prior to Hegel's explicit treatment of them. For Hegel, things exist before human thought. But, if the essence of Spriit is seen to be "freedom," Spirit's awareness of itself in its objects, then Spirit reaches completion only when the various objective elements with which the System deals are understood as moments of Spirit's own development by Spirit itself. This explicit awareness is, however, precisely the System. In this sense, therefore, the System does have its origin in time. At one specific temporal point, Spirit reaches full, conceptual understanding of itself. Similarly, at some moment in time, Spirit's object must become fully self-conscious, as this object is Spirit itself. It seems, then, that two specific conditions would be necessary for Spirit to evolve to a point where it can conceptually understand itself in a System of absolute knowledge. First, the Spiritual subject, that which is aware of itself in objectivity, whether this subject is personal or nonpersonal, must reach a level of development at which it can comprehend itself fully. A monkey, for example, does not suggest itself as such a subject. Second, that which this Spiritual subjectivity is aware of, Spiritual substance, must itself evolve to a position that explicitly indicates its spiritual nature. This, of course, means that that which Spirit is aware of must itself be self-conscious concerning its nature. This second condition cannot be met without the first being met, but perhaps the first can be fulfilled without the second. These two conditions are obviously interrelated. Indeed, it almost appears that we have set up a distinction without any purpose. At the culminating point in the development of both Spiritual subject and Spiritual substance, the distinction between the two appears to break down. The very fact that Hegel has supplied us with both a System and a Phenomenology indicates, however, that there are two parallel but distinguishable lines of development toward absolute Spirit. Very roughly, these two parallel evolutions of Spirit correspond to the development in the Phenomenologyand the development in the System; if you will, a subjective and an objective deduction of Absolute Spirit. The phenomenological evolution has as its moments the various attitudes of "consciousness [391 40 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY toward objectivity," a term Hegel uses to describe his informal history of modem philosophy in the introduction to the Lesser Logic. It would seem that Hegel is very clear in both Logics that the conceptual understanding of objectivity that comprises the System is possible only after this subjective evolution, or evolution of the Spiritual subject, is completed. The Phenomenology of Spirit is the science of consciousness, the exposition of it, and that consciousness has for result the Notion of science, i.e., pure knowing. Logic, then, has for its presupposition the science of manifested spirit, which contains and demonstrates the necessity, and so the truth, of the standpoint occupied by pure knowing and its mediation,l This does not mean that knowing Spirit must have completed its rise to the concept of knowledge before the moments observed in the System make their objective appearance in time. It does mean, however, that the phenomenological development must be completed before these objective moments can be understood to comprise a System of Spirit's development. That is, to be self-conscious of itself in its object, Spirit must already have reached the stage of its conscious development, or development of consciousness or awareness, that is termed Absolute Knowledge in the Phenomenology. The moments in the second development, the development I have called the "objective" evolution, are all characterized by their objectivity for conscious Spirit, though in themselves they are determinations of Spirit itself. There appear to be two damaging exceptions to this generalization. The various moments in the Logic are themselves categories of thought and thus seem to be...