Phenomenology of Spirit

Ph1Preface · Vorrede

¶1–72 · 1807 pp. [I]–XCI · GW 9:9–49 · before the Introduction

Context and aim

The book's first sentence says that a preface of the usual kind, stating the author's aim and his relation to other treatments of the subject, is superfluous in a philosophical work, and even unsuitable (¶1).^T Hegel writes one anyway. Its thesis is that the true shape of truth can only be its scientific system (¶5), and it calls the present "a time of birth and of transition to a new period" (¶11).^T It presents the Phenomenology as "the becoming of science in general, or of knowing", and as "the first part" of the system (¶27); its science is the science "of the experience which consciousness makes" (¶36); once it is complete, the movement of spirit's moments in the element of knowing "is logic or speculative philosophy" (¶37).^T

The book appeared at Bamberg and Würzburg (Goebhardt) in 1807 as System der Wissenschaft. Erster Theil.^H1 Jaeschke (2009, pp. 20–21) argues that presenting it on the title page as the first part of the system was a late decision.^I24

Key terms

• Moment (moment): a stage kept as a necessary part of a whole; bud, blossom and fruit are "moments of the organic unity" (¶2).
• Substanz / Subject (substance / subject): the true is to be grasped "not as substance, but just as much as subject" (¶17).
• Negation (the negative): what dissolves a fixed form; spirit has power only by dwelling with it (¶32).
• Gestalt (shape): a form in which knowing appears; in this book the moments of spirit appear as shapes of consciousness (¶36).
• speculativer Satz (speculative proposition): a sentence in which the subject passes over into the predicate (¶61–62).

Structure

The Preface has no printed subheadings; the diagram shows its place before the Introduction.

Our grouping: prefaces (¶1–4); truth as system, the new age (¶5–16); substance as subject (¶17–25); the way to science (¶26–37); historical and mathematical truth (¶38–47); method, "triplicity" (¶48–57); the speculative proposition (¶58–66); philosophy and the public (¶67–72).

A passage, step by step: bud, blossom and fruit

The target is opinion, which sees in the variety of philosophical systems only contradiction (¶2).^T

Die Knospe verschwindet in dem Hervorbrechen der Blüthe, und man könnte sagen, dass jene von dieser widerlegt wird

The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter

¶2 · 1807 p. III · GW 9:10 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.2

Aber ihre flüssige Natur macht sie zugleich zu Momenten der organischen Einheit, worin sie sich nicht nur nicht widerstreiten, sondern eins so nothwendig als das andere ist, und diese gleiche Nothwendigkeit macht erst das Leben des Ganzen aus.

But their fluid nature makes them at the same time moments of the organic unity, in which they not only do not conflict, but one is as necessary as the other; and this equal necessity first makes up the life of the whole. rendering for this page

¶2 · 1807 pp. III–IV · GW 9:10

Remarks and digressions

The night (¶16). To set the "one knowing" that in the Absolute all is equal (A = A) against "differentiating and fulfilled" cognition is, Hegel says, "the naivety of emptiness in cognition".^T

oder sein Absolutes für die Nacht auszugeben, worin, wie man zu sagen pflegt, alle Kühe schwarz sind

to give out its Absolute as the night in which, as we say, all cows are black

¶16 · 1807 p. XIX · GW 9:17 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.15

Substance as subject (¶17) is the program of the book.^T

… alles darauf an, das Wahre nicht als Substanz, sondern eben so sehr als Subject aufzufassen und auszudrücken.

… everything depends on grasping and expressing the ultimate truth not as Substance but as Subject as well.

¶17 · 1807 p. XX · GW 9:18 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.15

The whole (¶20). "Das Wahre ist das Ganze" ("The truth is the whole", tr. Baillie 1910, I.17); the next sentence says the whole is the essence that completes itself through its development, and the Absolute is essentially result, only at the end what it truly is.^T

Dwelling with the negative (¶32). The life of spirit does not shrink from death but endures it and maintains itself in it.^T

… sondern er ist diese Macht nur, indem er dem Negativen ins Angesicht schaut, bey ihm verweilt. Dieses Verweilen ist die Zauberkraft, die es in das Seyn umkehrt.

… but it is this power only by looking the negative in the face and dwelling with it. This dwelling is the magic power that converts it into being. rendering for this page

¶32 · 1807 p. XXXIX · GW 9:27

(Baillie: "mind is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and dwelling with it", I.31.) The revel (¶47): the true is "der bachantische Taumel, an dem kein Glied nicht trunken ist", and just as much transparent and simple repose (Baillie: "the bacchanalian revel, where not a soul is sober", I.44).^T

The speculative proposition (¶58–66). The form of the judgment, with its distinction of subject and predicate, "is destroyed by the speculative proposition" (¶61).^T Hegel's example:

so ist in dem Satz; Gott ist das Seyn, das Prädicat das Seyn; es hat substantielle Bedeutung, in der das Subject zerfliesst.

so in the proposition God is being the predicate is being; it has substantial meaning, in which the subject dissolves. rendering for this page

¶62 · 1807 p. LXXVII · GW 9:44

Thinking, which expected to move on from subject to predicate, feels checked and is thrown back to the subject (¶62).^T

Debates

Misconceptions

• “Hegel's method is thesis–antithesis–synthesis.”In ¶50 Hegel attacks the use of Kant's re-found "Triplicität" as a formula that turns it "zum leblosen Schema" (into a lifeless schema).^T Maybee (SEP "Hegel's Dialectics", §3), citing Mueller (1958), notes that Hegel never used the triad for his own philosophy.^I65
• “‘The true is the whole’ praises a finished totality.”The same paragraph defines the whole as "das durch seine Entwicklung sich vollendende Wesen", the essence completing itself through its development (¶20).^T

Connections

• Logic, Hegel's own. The 1832 Introduction says he has said what is essential about mathematical method "in der Vorrede zur Phänomenologie des Geistes" (cf. ¶42–46), and adds on the same page that Spinoza, Wolff and others were misled into applying it to philosophy (GW 21:37).^T3 For Spinoza's geometrical order see the Spinoza page.
• The title. In a note of 1831 to the Logic's first Preface Hegel says the second edition of the Phenomenology, due "next Easter", will no longer carry the title "first part of the System of Science" (GW 21:9).^T3 Schulze, editor of Werke II (1832), reports that Hegel's revision reached 1807 p. XXXVII (around ¶31–32).^H50
• Encyclopaedia. Enc. 1830 §25 Remark: the Phenomenology "was at its publication described as the first part of the System of Philosophy" (tr. Wallace 1892).^L10
• Readers. Adorno's "Das Ganze ist das Unwahre" (Minima Moralia, 1951) reverses ¶20 (SEP "Adorno", §7.1).^I87 Redding's SEP entry (§2.1) traces Hegel's inherited pantheism to Spinoza; ¶17 itself names no one.^I15

Sources for Ph1: 1, 3, 10, 15, 24, 34–37, 50, 65, 87.

Ph2Introduction · Einleitung

¶73–89 · 1807 pp. [3]–21 · GW 9:53–62 · after the half-title "Wissenschaft der Erfahrung des Bewusstseyns"

Context and aim

The Introduction starts from a "natural" idea: before tackling the matter itself, we should first examine cognition, taken either as an instrument with which we seize the Absolute or as a medium through which we see it (¶73).^T Hegel turns the suspicion round: this "fear of erring is already the error itself" (¶74).^T What can be presented instead is appearing knowledge; its path is that of natural consciousness toward true knowing, "the way of doubt, or more properly the way of despair" (¶77–78).^T

In the copy the Deutsches Textarchiv transcribed, a half-title "Erster Theil. Wissenschaft der Erfahrung des Bewusstseyns" stands between the Preface and this text; the body of the print gives the text no heading, and "Einleitung" is supplied by the edition used here.^H1 Jaeschke (2009, p. 22) reports that the half-title was later removed on Hegel's instruction; López (2015) that it was replaced during printing by "Wissenschaft der Phänomenologie des Geistes".^I24,29

Key terms

• Werkzeug / Medium (instrument / medium): the two pictures of cognition Hegel rejects (¶73).
• das erscheinende Wissen (appearing knowledge): knowledge as it shows up, not yet science; the object of the presentation (¶76–77).
• bestimmte Negation (determinate negation): a negation that has a content, because it is the nothing of what it came from (¶79).
• Massstab; an sich / für es (standard; in itself / for it): consciousness holds both what is true and its knowing of it (¶81–85).
• Erfahrung (experience): the movement in which a new true object arises for consciousness (¶86).
• für uns (for us): what the observing "we" see and consciousness does not (¶87).

Structure

No printed subheadings; the diagram places the Introduction under the half-title.

Our grouping: the instrument and the medium (¶73–76); the way of despair, determinate negation, the goal (¶77–80); the problem of a standard and its solution (¶81–85); experience and the "for us" (¶86–87); the way as science (¶88–89).

A passage, step by step: how consciousness tests itself

If philosophy may not borrow a standard from outside, what can it test knowledge against? Hegel's answer:

Das Bewusstseyn gibt seinen Massstab an ihm selbst, und die Untersuchung wird dadurch eine Vergleichung seiner mit sich selbst seyn

Consciousness provides its standard in itself, and the investigation will thereby be a comparison of consciousness with itself rendering for this page

¶84 · 1807 p. 15 · GW 9:59

Diese dialektische Bewegung, welche das Bewusstseyn an ihm selbst, sowohl an seinem Wissen, als an seinem Gegenstande ausübt, in sofern ihm der neue wahre Gegenstand daraus entspringt, ist eigentlich dasjenige, was Erfahrung genannt wird.

This dialectical movement which consciousness exercises on itself, on its knowing as well as on its object, insofar as the new true object for it springs from it, is properly what is called experience. rendering for this page

¶86 · 1807 p. 18 · GW 9:60

… ist es, was für uns gleichsam hinter seinem Rücken vorgeht.

… that to us, who watch the process, is to be seen going on, so to say, behind its back.

¶87 · 1807 p. 20 · GW 9:61 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.88

Remarks and digressions

Determinate negation (¶79). One-sided scepticism sees in every result only "pure nothing" and must wait for something new to throw into the same empty abyss.^T Against it:

Indem dagegen das Resultat, wie es in Wahrheit ist, aufgefasst wird, als bestimmte Negation, so ist damit unmittelbar eine neue Form entsprungen

When, on the other hand, the result is grasped as it truly is, as determinate negation, a new form has thereby immediately arisen rendering for this page

¶79 · 1807 p. 12 · GW 9:57

The phrase "bestimmte Negation" occurs only here in the book, as counted in the research for this page.^T1 The goal (¶80) lies where knowing no longer needs to go beyond itself, where concept corresponds to object and object to concept.^T

Debates

Misconceptions

• “The Introduction first settles a theory of knowledge, then applies it.”It rejects exactly this: examining cognition as an instrument or medium before knowing (¶73–74).^T
• “Negation in Hegel leaves nothing behind.”That is the sceptic's "pure nothing"; the true result is "the nothing of that from which it results", and so has a content (¶79).^T

Connections

• Logic, Hegel's own. The 1832 Doctrine of Being: the Phenomenology, "die Wissenschaft des Bewußtseyns", presents consciousness reaching pure knowing as its result, and the Logic presupposes it (GW 21:54).^T3 The 1832 Introduction calls it an example of the method applied to consciousness: shapes each of which dissolves itself and "ihre eigene Negation zu ihrem Resultate hat" (GW 21:37–38).^T3
• Encyclopaedia. Enc. 1830 §25 Remark, Hegel's own looking back: the development of the content "must, so to speak, go on behind consciousness" (tr. Wallace 1892), compare ¶87.^L10
• Next. The first shape to test itself is sense-certainty (Ph3).

Sources for Ph2: 1, 3, 10, 24, 29–30, 32, 86, 88–89.

Ph3Sense-certainty · Die sinnliche Gewißheit

¶90–110 · 1807 pp. 22–37 · GW 9:63–70 · ch. I of (A) Consciousness

Context and aim

The full heading is "I. Die sinnliche Gewissheit; oder das Diese und das Meynen" (sense-certainty, or the This and meaning). The letter "(A) Bewusstseyn" over chapters I–III stands only in the 1807 table of contents, not in the body.^T1 The first object is knowledge that is itself immediate, knowledge "of the immediate or of what is", and "we" must take it up without altering it (¶90).^T It looks like the richest knowledge, but gives itself out as "the most abstract and poorest truth": it says only that the thing is (¶91).^T Hegel tests it three times, placing its truth first in the object, then in the I, then in the whole relation (¶103).^T No opponent is named in the chapter (¶90–110).^T

Key terms

• Unmittelbarkeit (immediacy): knowing without mediation, the claim sense-certainty makes for itself (¶90).
• das Diese; Itzt, Hier (the This; Now, Here; 1807 spells "Itzt"): the two forms in which the This is asked about (¶95).
• Allgemeines (a universal): what is "neither this nor that, a not-this", and indifferent to being this or that (¶96).
• Meynen (meaning, opining): what I mean but cannot say; Hegel plays on meinem Gegenstande ("my object") and Meynen (¶97, ¶100).
• Aufzeigen (pointing out): the attempt to show the This with a gesture instead of words (¶105–108).

Structure

One printed chapter without subheadings.

Hegel's own order (¶103): truth in the object, Now and Here (¶95–99); truth in the I (¶100–102); truth in the whole relation, by pointing (¶103–108); against those who assert the reality of sensible things (¶109–110).

A passage, step by step: "The Now is the night"

Sense-certainty itself is to be asked: "What is the This?" (¶95).^T

Auf die Frage: was ist das Itzt? antworten wir also zum Beyspiel: Das Itzt ist die Nacht.

To the question, What is the Now? we reply, for example, the Now is night-time.

¶95 · 1807 p. 25 · GW 9:64 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.93

Wir schreiben diese Wahrheit auf; … Sehen wir Itzt, diesen Mittag, die aufgeschriebene Wahrheit wieder an, so werden wir sagen müssen, dass sie schaal geworden ist.

We write this truth down; … If we look at the written truth again now, this noon, we shall have to say that it has gone stale. rendering for this page

¶95 · 1807 p. 25 · GW 9:64

Ein solches einfaches, das durch Negation ist, weder dieses noch jenes, ein nicht dieses, und ebenso gleichgültig, auch dieses wie jenes zu seyn, nennen wir ein allgemeines; das allgemeine ist also in der That das wahre der sinnlichen Gewissheit.

Such a simple thing, which is through negation, neither this nor that, a not-this, and just as indifferent to being this as that, we call a universal; so the universal is in fact the true of sense-certainty. rendering for this page

¶96 · 1807 p. 26 · GW 9:65

Das Hier ist zum Beyspiel der Baum. Ich wende mich um, so ist diese Wahrheit verschwunden, und hat sich in die entgegengesetzte verkehrt: Das Hier ist nicht ein Baum, sondern vielmehr ein Haus.

The Here is, for example, the tree. I turn round, and this truth has vanished and turned into its opposite: The Here is not a tree, but rather a house. rendering for this page

¶98 · 1807 p. 27 · GW 9:65

The second round fails in the same way: another I sees a house where I see a tree, and the I proves just as universal as the Now (¶101–102).^T The chapter ends when I try to help speech by pointing to "diss Stück Papier": I take it as a Here of many Heres, a universal, and "instead of knowing something immediate, I perceive" (¶110).^T

Remarks and digressions

The Eleusinian mysteries and the animals (¶109). Those who assert the reality of sensible objects should go back to "the lowest school of wisdom", the Eleusinian mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus, and learn the secret of eating bread and drinking wine. The animals are initiated most deeply: they do not stand before sensible things as being in themselves, but "fall to without ado and eat them up".^T

The unsayable (¶110). "Was das Unaussprechliche genannt wird" is "nothing other than the untrue, the irrational, what is merely meant".^T Language, Hegel says, has "die göttliche Natur" of inverting the meaning at once (¶110).^T

Debates

Misconceptions

• “Hegel says sensation is false.”What fails is the claim of the bare This to be the truth. The next chapter begins: the wealth of sensuous knowledge belongs to perception, not to immediate certainty (¶112).^T
• “The ‘we’ refutes sense-certainty from outside.”Hegel asks sense-certainty itself ("Sie ist also selbst zu fragen") and lets it fail by its own test (¶95).^T

Connections

• Logic, Hegel's own. The 1816 Doctrine of the Concept: "In der Phänomenologie des Geistes, als der Lehre vom Bewußtseyn, wurde durch die Stuffen des sinnlichen Bewußtseyns und dann des Wahrnehmens zum Verstande aufgestiegen" (GW 12:19).^T43
• Absolute knowing. At the end the object is recollected as immediate being, "a thing in general", which "corresponds to immediate consciousness" (¶789).^T
• Encyclopaedia. Enc. 1830 §§418–419, "sensuous consciousness", opens the Phenomenology section of Subjective Spirit (headings checked in English).^L45
• An echo (our observation). The 1813 Remark on contradiction uses the same words: something moves only by being "in einem und demselben Itzt hier und nicht hier" (GW 11:287).^T42

Sources for Ph3: 1, 42–43, 45, 86, 90.

Ph4Perception · Die Wahrnehmung

¶111–131 · 1807 pp. 38–58 · GW 9:71–82 · ch. II of (A) Consciousness

Context and aim

The full heading is "II. Die Wahrnehmung; oder das Ding, und die Täuschung" (perception, or the thing and deception). Sense-certainty ended by taking the This as a universal; perception now "takes what is for it as universal" (¶111).^T "The wealth of sensuous knowledge belongs to perception", because only perception has negation, difference and manifoldness in its essence (¶112).^T Its object is the thing with many properties (¶112–113).^T The chapter ends with what Hegel calls the "sophistry" of perception, which tries to save the thing from contradiction with distinctions of respect, "Auch" and "Insofern" (¶130); "sound common sense" is the play of these empty abstractions, always "poorest where it thinks itself richest" (¶131).^T

Key terms

• Ding, Eigenschafft (thing, property; 1807 spelling): the object of perception (¶112–113).
• aufheben (to sublate): here Hegel spells out its double sense: "es ist ein Negiren und ein Aufbewahren zugleich", a negating and a preserving at once (¶113).
• das Auch; Medium, Dingheit (the Also; medium, thinghood): the indifferent unity in which the properties coexist (¶113).
• Eins (One): the thing as an excluding unity (¶114).
• Täuschung (deception): perceiving consciousness knows that it may be deceived (¶116).
• Rücksicht, Insofern (respect, "insofar"): the distinctions by which perception tries to keep the contradiction apart (¶128, ¶130).

Structure

One printed chapter without subheadings.

Our grouping: the concept of the thing (¶111–116); the experience of perceiving, the thing as One and as Also (¶117–123); the thing's own contradiction (¶124–128); the unconditioned universal and the "sophistry" of perception (¶129–131).

A passage, step by step: the salt

Diss Saltz ist einfaches Hier, und zugleich vielfach; es ist weiss, und auch scharf, auch kubisch gestaltet, auch von bestimmter Schwere, und so weiter.

This salt is a simple Here and at the same time manifold; it is white, and also tart, also cubical in shape, also of a determinate weight, and so on. rendering for this page

¶113 · 1807 p. 41 · GW 9:72

… und dieses ist daher nicht nur ein Auch, gleichgültige Einheit, sondern auch Eins, ausschliessende Einheit.

… and this is therefore not only an Also, an indifferent unity, but also a One, an excluding unity. rendering for this page

¶114 · 1807 p. 42 · GW 9:73

Diss Ding ist also in der That nur weiss, an unser Auge gebracht, scharf auch, an unsre Zunge, auch kubisch an unser Gefühl, und so fort.

So this thing is in fact white only when brought to our eyes, tart also to our tongue, also cubical to our touch, and so on. rendering for this page

¶119 · 1807 p. 47 · GW 9:75

Es fällt hiemit das letzte Insofern hinweg, welches das für sich seyn, und das seyn für anderes trennte; der Gegenstand ist vielmehr in einer und derselben Rücksicht das Gegentheil seiner selbst

With this the last insofar falls away which separated being-for-itself and being-for-another; the object is rather in one and the same respect the opposite of itself rendering for this page

¶128 · 1807 p. 54 · GW 9:79

Remarks and digressions

Deception (¶116–117). "Das Wahrnehmende hat das Bewusstseyn der Möglichkeit der Täuschung": perceiving knows that it can be deceived (¶116).^T When the thing turns out not to be what it was first taken as, consciousness concludes that the object is the true, so "the untruth falls into me" (¶117).^T

"Diese Logik des Wahrnehmens" (¶130). The devices of perception, the Also and the Insofar, and the distinction of essential and unessential, prove null; the true they were to secure is in one and the same respect its opposite (¶130).^T This is one of only three paragraphs of the book that use the word "Logik" (with ¶37 and ¶48).^T1

Debates

Misconceptions

• “The salt is a commentator's example.”It is Hegel's own, printed "Saltz" in 1807 (¶113).^T
• “Hegel himself maps this chapter onto the Logic's ‘thing and its properties’.”The 1813 Doctrine of Essence has a section "A. Das Ding und seine Eigenschaften" (GW 11:327), but no cross-reference to this chapter was found in the local Logic text; the pairing is by name only.^T42

Connections

• Logic, Hegel's own. The 1816 Doctrine of the Concept looks back on the Phenomenology as having ascended through sensuous consciousness and perception to the understanding (GW 12:19).^T43
• Absolute knowing. The object's being-for-another and being-for-itself, determinateness, is "what corresponds to perception" (¶789).^T
• Encyclopaedia. Enc. 1830 §§420–421, "perception" (Wahrnehmung), in the Phenomenology section of Subjective Spirit (headings checked in English).^L45
• Before and after. The This of Ph3 returns as a "determinate nothing" with a content (¶113); the unconditioned universal leads to force (Ph5).^T

Sources for Ph4: 1, 42–43, 45, 91–92.

Ph5Force and the Understanding · Krafft und Verstand

¶132–165 · 1807 pp. 59–100 · GW 9:82–102 · ch. III of (A) Consciousness

Context and aim

The full heading is "III. Krafft und Verstand, Erscheinung und übersinnliche Welt" (force and understanding, appearance and the supersensible world). Perception has brought consciousness to thoughts, which it first unites in the "unconditioned universal"; this is now its true object, but still as an object (¶132).^T The understanding first grasps it as force and its expression (¶136).^T Through the play of forces it looks "into the true background of things", the inner (¶143), and above the sensible, appearing world a supersensible world opens as the true one (¶144).^T Yet this inner "has arisen, it comes from appearance": "appearance is its essence" (¶147).^T The chapter goes on through the realm of laws, explanation and the inverted world, and ends with self-consciousness (¶165).^T

Key terms

• Verstand (understanding): consciousness whose object is the universal behind the thing (¶132–133).
• Krafft, Aeusserung, Spiel der Kräffte (force, expression, play of forces): the universal as a movement of spreading out and returning (¶136–141).
• das Innere; übersinnliche Welt (the inner; supersensible world): the "beyond" of appearance (¶143–147).
• das ruhige Reich der Gesetze (the calm realm of laws): the first supersensible world, "the immediate copy of the perceived world" (¶149–150, ¶157).
• verkehrte Welt (inverted world): the second supersensible world (¶157–159).
• Unendlichkeit (infinity): difference as inner difference, the self-repelling of the like (¶160–163).

Structure

One printed chapter without subheadings.

Our grouping: force and its expression, the play of forces (¶132–141); the inner and the supersensible beyond (¶142–148); the realm of laws and explanation (¶149–156); the inverted world (¶157–160); infinity, life, the curtain (¶161–165).

A passage, step by step: the inverted world

Diese zweyte übersinnliche Welt ist auf diese Weise die verkehrte Welt

This second supersensible world is in this way the inverted world (verkehrte Welt)

¶157 · 1807 p. 88 · GW 9:96 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.152

An bestimmten Momenten wird diss sich so ergeben, dass was im Gesetze der ersten süss, in diesem verkehrten Ansich sauer; was in jenem schwartz, in diesem weiss ist. … in welcher das, was in jener verachtet ist, zu Ehren, was in jener in Ehren steht, in Verachtung kommt.

In determinate moments this will turn out so that what is sweet in the law of the first is sour in this inverted in-itself; what is black in that is white in this. … in which what is despised in that one comes to honor, and what is honored in that one falls into contempt. rendering for this page

¶158 · 1807 pp. 89–90 · GW 9:97

Es ist der reine Wechsel, oder die Entgegensetzung in sich selbst, der Widerspruch zu denken.

What is to be thought is pure change, or opposition within itself, contradiction. rendering for this page

¶160 · 1807 p. 92 · GW 9:98

Remarks and digressions

Explanation (¶154–155). A single flash of lightning is taken as a universal, stated as the law of electricity, and the explanation then gathers the law into a force as its essence (¶154).^T It is "an explaining that not only explains nothing, but is so clear that, in setting out to say something different from what was already said, it rather says nothing, and only repeats the same" (¶155).^T

The curtain (¶165).

Es zeigt sich, dass hinter dem sogenannten Vorhange, welcher das Innre verdecken soll, nichts zu sehen ist, wenn wir nicht selbst dahintergehen, ebensosehr damit gesehen werde, als dass etwas dahinter sey, das gesehen werden kann.

It turns out that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to hide the inner there is nothing to be seen unless we go behind it ourselves, as much so that there is seeing as so that there may be something behind it that can be seen. rendering for this page

¶165 · 1807 p. 100 · GW 9:102

What looks into the inner here is self-consciousness: the curtain is drawn away, and the inner beholds the inner (¶165).^T

Debates

Misconceptions

• “The inverted world is Hegel's view that reality is upside down.”It is the second supersensible world that the understanding builds and must give up: "taken superficially" it is a mere counter-world, and that picture "must be removed" (¶159–160).^T
• “For Hegel a hidden thing-in-itself lies behind appearances.”The inner comes from appearance, and "appearance is its essence" (¶147); behind the curtain there is nothing to see unless we go behind it ourselves (¶165).^T

Connections

Logic, Hegel's own link. One of the few places where Hegel pairs a section of this book with a section of the Logic; another is the Idea of the Good (1816, GW 12:233), which sends the reader to the opening of Morality (¶596; Ph14).^T43 Here:

Der Nordpol in der erscheinenden Welt, ist an und für sich der Südpol, und umgekehrt; die positive Electricität ist an sich negative u.s.f. Was im erscheinenden Daseyn böse, Unglük u.s.f. ist, ist an und für sich gut und ein Glück

The north pole in the appearing world is in and for itself the south pole, and conversely; positive electricity is in itself negative, and so on. What in appearing existence is evil, misfortune and so on, is in and for itself good and good fortune rendering for this page

GW 11:351 · 1813, Doctrine of Essence, "C. Auflösung der Erscheinung"; Hegel's footnote: "(Vergl. Phänomenologie des Geistes. S. 96. ff.)"

• 1807 p. 96 holds the end of ¶162 and the start of ¶163 (infinity); the pole examples themselves are ¶158, pp. 89–90. So the page points to the resolution of the inverted world rather than to its examples (our observation from the page table).^T42
• Encyclopaedia. Enc. 1830 §§422–423, "the understanding" (headings checked in English).^L45
• Absolute knowing. The object as essence or universal is "what corresponds to the understanding" (¶789).^T
• Next. Self-consciousness and desire (Ph6).

Sources for Ph5: 42–43, 45, 91, 93.

Ph6Self-consciousness; Lordship and Bondage · Herrschafft und Knechtschafft

¶166–196 · 1807 pp. 101–128 · GW 9:103–116 · ch. IV and IV.A of (B) Self-consciousness

Context and aim

Until now the true was something other than consciousness; now "we have entered the native realm of truth" (¶166–167).^T Self-consciousness "is desire in general" (¶167): it is certain of itself only by superseding the other that presents itself as independent life (¶174).^T In satisfaction it learns that its object is independent, and so it "reaches its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness" (¶175).^T "It is a self-consciousness for a self-consciousness", and with this the concept of spirit is present "for us" (¶177):^T

Ich, das Wir, und Wir, das Ich ist.

Ego that is "we," a plurality of Egos, and "we" that is a single Ego.

¶177 · 1807 p. 113 · GW 9:108 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.174

Section A, "Selbstständigkeit und Unselbstständigkeit des Selbstbewusstseyns; Herrschafft und Knechtschafft", opens with the thesis that self-consciousness is in and for itself only "as something recognized" (¶178).^T

Key terms

• Begierde (desire): relating to an object by negating it (¶167, ¶174).
• Anerkennung (recognition): in its pure concept mutual: "they recognize themselves as mutually recognizing" (¶184).
• Kampf auf Leben und Tod (struggle of life and death): how recognition first appears (¶187).
• Herr / Knecht (lord / bondsman): the two resulting shapes (¶189).
• Arbeit, bilden (work, to form): desire held back, which shapes the thing (¶195).
• eigner Sinn / Eigensinn (a mind of one's own / self-will) (¶196).

Structure

Chapter IV as a whole, then section A: desire (¶166–177); recognition and struggle (¶178–188); lord and bondsman (¶189–196).

A passage, step by step: struggle, reversal, work

Das Individuum, welches das Leben nicht gewagt hat, kann wohl als Person anerkannt werden; aber es hat die Wahrheit dieses Anerkanntseyns als eines selbstständigen Selbstbewusstseyns nicht erreicht.

The individual who has not staked his life may well be recognized as a person; but he has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness. rendering for this page

¶187 · 1807 p. 119 · GW 9:111

Die Wahrheit des selbstständigen Bewusstseyns ist demnach das knechtische Bewusstseyn.

The truth of the independent consciousness is accordingly the servile consciousness. rendering for this page

¶193 · 1807 p. 124 · GW 9:114

Die Arbeit hingegen ist gehemmte Begierde, aufgehaltenes Verschwinden, oder sie bildet.

Labour, on the other hand, is desire restrained and checked, evanescence delayed and postponed; in other words, labour shapes and fashions the thing.

¶195 · 1807 p. 126 · GW 9:115 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.186

Remarks and digressions

"Die Furcht des Herrn" is "the beginning of wisdom" (¶195; Baillie: "albeit the fear of his lord is the beginning of wisdom", I.186).^T The transcription prints "Wei heit" with a gap (1807 p. 125).^T1 Compare Psalm 111:10 in the Luther Bible: Die Furcht des HERRN ist der Weisheit Anfang (wording of the 1912 revision).^H94

Debates

Misconceptions

• “Hegel wrote a ‘master–slave dialectic’.”The heading is "Herrschafft und Knechtschafft", the persons "Herr" and "Knecht" (¶189); Baillie has "Lordship and Bondage".^TH9 The master/slave wording is associated with Kojève's reading (IEP "Kojève").^I96
• “Work makes the bondsman free.”It gives him a mind of his own; without absolute fear this is self-will, a freedom still inside servitude (¶196), and the next shape, Stoicism, is free only in thought (Ph7).^T

Connections

• Encyclopaedia. Enc. 1830 §§430–437: recognition (struggle §432, lord and bondsman §433), then universal self-consciousness; the §432 text on Hegel-by-HyperText appears to be Boumann's Zusatz, not Hegel's.^L45
• Inside the book (our observation). The Terror chapter repeats the formula reversed: "die Furcht ihres absoluten Herrn, des Todes" (¶593).^T
• Marx (1844) praises the Phenomenology for grasping labor as man's essence, and objects: "Die Arbeit, welche Hegel allein kennt und anerkennt, ist die abstrakt geistige" (MEW EB1:574).^I104
• Readers. Kojève's reading shaped Sartre and Lacan (SEP "Recognition", §1.1).^I105 Butler (1987) follows the theme of desire from here through Kojève and Hyppolite to French theory.^I106

Sources for Ph6: 1, 9, 15, 45, 68–70, 94–106.

Ph7Stoicism, Scepticism, the Unhappy Consciousness · Freyheit des Selbstbewusstseyns

¶197–230 · 1807 pp. 129–161 · GW 9:116–131 · IV.B of (B) Self-consciousness

Context and aim

The full heading is "B. Freyheit des Selbstbewusstseyns; Stoicismus, Skepticismus, und das unglückliche Bewusstseyn". In forming things the bondsman has become an object to himself; "for us" a new shape has arisen, a consciousness that "thinks, or is free self-consciousness" (¶197).^T Here, unusually, Hegel names a historical school: this freedom, "as is well known", was called Stoicism when it appeared in the history of spirit (¶198).^T Scepticism "is the realization of what Stoicism was only the concept of" (¶202), and from its self-contradiction comes the unhappy consciousness (¶206).^T The chapter ends with the idea of reason (¶230).^T

Key terms

• Denken (thinking): relating to an object that is at once oneself; the element of Stoic freedom (¶197).
• Stoicismus: freedom in thought, indifferent to natural existence (¶198–201).
• Skepticismus, Ataraxie (scepticism, imperturbability): freedom made actual by negating every fixed content (¶202–205).
• das unglückliche Bewusstseyn (the unhappy consciousness): consciousness of itself "as the doubled, merely contradictory being" (¶206).
• das Unwandelbare (the Unchangeable): the simple essence, set against the manifold changeable; consciousness takes its own side to be the changeable, the unessential, and must strive to free itself from itself (¶207–210).
• Andacht; die Mitte, der Diener (devotion; the middle, the servant) (¶217, ¶228).

Structure

One printed section with three shapes and no subheadings.

Our grouping: Stoicism (¶197–201); Scepticism (¶202–206); the concept of the unhappy consciousness (¶207–216); its three attitudes: devotion (¶217), desire and work (¶218–222), self-mortification and the mediator (¶223–230).

A passage, step by step: from the throne to the grave

… sondern wie auf dem Throne so in den Fesseln, in aller Abhängigkeit seines einzelnen Daseyns frey zu seyn

… but to be free on the throne as in fetters, in every dependence of its individual existence rendering for this page

¶199 · 1807 p. 132 · GW 9:117

sein Gerede ist in der That ein Gezänke eigensinniger Jungen, deren einer A sagt, wenn der andere B, und wieder B, wenn der andere A

its talk is in fact a squabble of stubborn boys, one of whom says A when the other says B, and B again when the other says A rendering for this page

¶205 · 1807 pp. 139–140 · GW 9:121

… und das unglückliche Bewusstseyn ist das Bewusstseyn seiner als des gedoppelten nur widersprechenden Wesens.

… and the unhappy consciousness is the consciousness of itself as the doubled, merely contradictory being. rendering for this page

¶206 · 1807 pp. 140–141 · GW 9:121

Dem Bewusstseyn kann daher nur das Grab seines Lebens zur Gegenwart kommen.

Therefore only the grave of its life can become present to consciousness. rendering for this page

¶217 · 1807 p. 149 · GW 9:126

Remarks and digressions

Bells and mist (¶217). The devout consciousness's thinking stays "das gestaltlose Sausen des Glockengeläutes", the formless booming of bells, "ein musicalisches Denken, das nicht zum Begriffe … kommt" (1807 p. 148, GW 9:125).^T

Names. The section names Stoicism and Scepticism (¶198, ¶202), but no person, period or religion for the unhappy consciousness; a search of the section finds no "Christ-", "Kreuz" or "Kirche".^T1

Debates

Misconceptions

• “Stoicism is the bondsman's freedom achieved.”Hegel calls it "nur der Begriff der Freyheit, nicht die lebendige Freyheit selbst" (¶200).^T
• “The chapter is about medieval Christianity, which Hegel names.”He names no religion or period here (¶207–230); any identification is the reader's.^T

Connections

• Later in the book, Hegel's own back-references. In the condition of right (Rechtszustand; Ph11): "wir sahen früher die stoische Selbstständigkeit des reinen Denkens, durch den Skepticismus hindurch gehen" and find its truth in the unhappy consciousness (¶483).^T In revealed religion the unhappy consciousness is "die Gegenseite und Vervollständigung" of the happy comic consciousness (¶752), and it has the painful feeling "dass Gott selbst gestorben ist" (¶785).^T
• Encyclopaedia. The 1830 Phenomenology of Spirit goes from desire through recognition and universal self-consciousness to reason (§§424–439); Stoicism, Scepticism and the unhappy consciousness have no section there (headings checked in English; the comparison is ours).^L45
• Before and after. The doubling within one consciousness (¶206) bears on the one-or-two debate in Ph6; the idea of reason (¶230) opens Ph8.

Sources for Ph7: 1, 45, 107.

Ph8Reason; Observing Reason · Beobachtende Vernunft

¶231–346 · 1807 pp. 162–286 · GW 9:132–192 · V and V.A of (C) (AA) Reason

Context and aim

From the unhappy consciousness's sacrifice comes the thought that the single consciousness is in itself absolute essence (¶231).^T Chapter V, "Gewissheit und Wahrheit der Vernunft", states it:

Die Vernunft ist die Gewissheit des Bewusstseyns alle Realität zu seyn

Reason is the conscious certainty of being all reality.

¶233 · 1807 p. 164 · GW 9:133 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.224

"So idealism expresses its concept" (¶233); but an idealism that starts with this claim without presenting the way to it is "pure assurance", which neither grasps itself nor can make itself grasped (¶234).^T The certainty is at first only "the pure category" (¶238).^T Observing reason then no longer merely happens to perceive: "here it sets up the observations and the experience itself" (¶240).^T In the 1807 table of contents, as read from the OCR of a scan (page images not checked), "(C)" is printed only once, with "(AA)" on the Reason line, so that Spirit, Religion and Absolute Knowing, (BB)–(DD), stand formally under (C).^T1 On whether the first plan ended with Reason, see Ph2.

Key terms

• Vernunft (reason): the certainty of being all reality (¶233).
• Versicherung (assurance): a claim made without its proof, the way (¶234).
• Beobachten (observing): reason seeking itself as a thing that is (¶240–243).
• Physiognomik, Schädellehre (physiognomy, skull-science): reading character from the face, then from the skull (¶309–346).
• unendliches Urtheil (infinite judgment): here, the judgment "that the self is a thing", which sublates itself (¶344).

Structure

The diagram shows chapter V; this chapter covers its introduction and section A with its three parts: observation of nature (¶244–297), logical and psychological laws (¶298–308), physiognomy and phrenology (¶309–346).

A passage, step by step: "the being of spirit is a bone"

Physiognomy claims to differ from "bad arts and unholy studies" by relating character and shape, inner and outer, as their concept requires, so that they form the content of a law (¶314).^T Hegel answers with two quotations from Lichtenberg, whom he names (¶318, ¶322).^T

Gesetzt der Physiognom haschte den Menschen einmal, so käme es nur auf einen braven Entschluss an, sich wieder auf Jahrtausende unbegreiflich zu machen.

Supposing the physiognomist did once catch a man, it would only take a brave resolve to make oneself incomprehensible again for thousands of years. rendering for this page

¶318 · 1807 p. 252 · GW 9:176

„wenn jemand sagte, du handelst zwar, wie ein ehrlicher Mann, ich sehe es aber aus deiner Figur, du zwingst dich, und bist ein Schelm im Herzen; fürwahr eine solche Anrede wird bis ans Ende der Welt von jedem braven Kerl mit einer Ohrfeige erwiedert werden.“

"If someone said: you act, to be sure, like an honest man, but I can see from your figure that you force yourself and are a rogue at heart; truly, to the end of the world such an address will be answered by every decent fellow with a box on the ear." rendering for this page

¶322 · 1807 pp. 256–257 · GW 9:178

… und was in Wahrheit gesagt wird, drückt sich hiemit so aus, dass das Seyn des Geistes ein Knochen ist.

… and what the statement really amounts to is consequently conveyed in the expression that the existence of mind is a bone.

¶343 · 1807 p. 282 · GW 9:190 · tr. Baillie 1910, I.333

Er ist das unendliche Urtheil, dass das Selbst ein Ding ist, — ein Urtheil, das sich selbst aufhebt.

It is the infinite judgment that the self is a thing, a judgment that sublates itself. rendering for this page

¶344 · 1807 p. 283 · GW 9:191

Remarks and digressions

Lichtenberg. Both quotations come from G. C. Lichtenberg, Ueber Physiognomik, wider die Physiognomen (Göttingen 1778), as compared with that print for this page. At ¶318 the 1778 text reads "auf Jahrhunderte unbegreiflich": Hegel turns centuries into millennia. At ¶322 the wording is close: Hegel drops an opening "Aber", adds an "es", and changes the punctuation. (The 1778 pages, about p. 35 and p. 6, are inferred from the leaf sequence of the scan, not read off the page.)^H108

Gall. The skull-science is never tied to a name: "Gall" occurs nowhere in the book.^T1 Readers link it with F. J. Gall. Elsa Rimboux's entry "phrénologie" in Larousse's Dictionnaire de la philosophie notes that Spurzheim coined the word in 1810 for what Gall called "craniologie", and discusses Hegel's critique of it, citing chapter V of the Phenomenology.^I109

Debates

Misconceptions

• “‘Spirit is a bone’ is a joke Hegel makes against phrenology, and nothing more.”He also calls the finding "highly important" and an infinite judgment (¶343–344); both sides are in the text.^T
• “Observing reason is Hegel's philosophy of nature.”It is a shape of consciousness: reason that wants to find itself as an existing object (¶242). Its observation of nature (¶244–297) is one stage of that search, not a treatise on nature.^T

Connections

• Logic. The 1816 Doctrine of the Concept treats the "Unendliches Urtheil" (GW 12:69–70): negatively infinite judgments such as "der Verstand ist kein Tisch" are correct but absurd, and crime is a more real example. Hegel does not refer back to ¶344 there; the pairing is ours.^T43
• End of the book (our observation). "Schädelstätten" (places of skulls) occurs at ¶335; the book's last paragraph calls comprehended history "die Schädelstätte des absoluten Geistes" (¶808).^T
• Encyclopaedia. Enc. 1830 §§438–439, "reason", close the Phenomenology section of Subjective Spirit (headings checked in English); physiognomy and phrenology have no heading there.^L45
• Before. The certainty of reason grows out of the unhappy consciousness (Ph7).

Sources for Ph8: 1, 43, 45, 86, 108–109.

Ph9Active reason · Die Verwirklichung des vernünftigen Selbstbewußtseyns durch sich selbst

¶347–393 · 1807 pp. 286–329 · GW 9:193–214 · V.B of (C) (AA) Reason

Context and aim

Observing reason ended with the skull. Self-consciousness, Hegel says, "found the thing as itself, and itself as thing" (¶347). Now it acts: it wants to make itself real through its own doing. Its object is another self-consciousness, by which it is certain of being "in itself" recognized (¶347).^T

Hegel names the goal at once. Reason is truly actual only in the life of a free people, where the individual does not merely find its purpose written down but is it (¶352).^T

In einem freyen Volke ist darum in Wahrheit die Vernunft verwirklicht; sie ist gegenwärtiger lebendiger Geist, worin das Individuum seine Bestimmung, das heisst, sein allgemeines und einzelnes Wesen, nicht nur ausgesprochen und als Dingheit vorhanden findet, sondern selbst dieses Wesen ist

In a free people, therefore, reason is in truth actualized; it is present, living spirit, in which the individual not only finds its destination, that is, its universal and its individual essence, expressed and present as a thing, but is itself this essence rendering for this page

¶352 · 1807 p. 292 · GW 9:195

The shapes that follow can be read in two directions, Hegel says (¶357). Read one way, they lead up to that ethical substance and come before it. Read the other way, they come after it, and to that extent this movement "would be" (wäre) the coming-to-be of morality, "a higher shape". But these shapes make up only one side of that coming-to-be, and here their goal is ethical substance. He presents them in the second form, because it "lies nearer to our times": the form they take once consciousness has lost its ethical life and repeats these forms while searching for it (¶357).^T So the three figures are modern: the pleasure-seeker, the reformer of the heart, the knight of virtue.

Key terms

• Lust, pleasure, and Nothwendigkeit, necessity (heading, ¶360–366). Necessity is that of which "one cannot say what it does": empty relation, whose only work is the nothing of the single individual (¶363).^T
• Gesetz des Herzens, law of the heart (¶367): the universal that consciousness knows immediately in its own being-for-self.^T
• Eigendünkel, self-conceit; its "madness" (Wahnsinn, heading; Verrücktheit, ¶377).^T
• Tugend and Weltlauf, virtue and the way (course) of the world (¶381): for virtue the law is essential and individuality must be sacrificed; the way of the world makes individuality its essence.^T
• Wirklichkeit: each shape tests what it means to make a purpose actual, and finds that the actual is not what it meant.

Structure

An introduction and three printed subsections, each shape richer than the last (Hegel compares all three at ¶381):^T

Introduction ¶347–359; a. pleasure and necessity ¶360–366; b. law of the heart ¶367–380; c. virtue and the way of the world ¶381–393.

A passage, step by step

After a first paragraph, Hegel inserts four lines of verse, printed as verse, with no name attached.

Es verachtet Verstand und Wissenschaft
des Menschen allerhöchste Gaben —
es hat dem Teufel sich ergeben
und muss zu Grunde gehn.

It despises understanding and science,
man's highest gifts of all —
it has given itself to the devil
and must go to ruin. rendering for this page

¶360 · 1807 p. 299 · GW 9:198

es nimmt sich das Leben, wie eine reife Frucht gepflückt wird, welche ebensosehr selbst entgegen kommt, als sie genommen wird.

it takes life as a ripe fruit is plucked, which comes to meet the hand as much as it is taken. rendering for this page

¶361 · 1807 p. 299 · GW 9:199

es nahm das Leben, aber vielmehr ergriff es damit den Tod.

it took life, but in doing so it rather seized death. rendering for this page

¶364 · 1807 p. 303 · GW 9:201

Die Tugend wird also von dem Weltlauffe besiegt, weil das abstracte, unwirkliche Wesen in der That ihr Zweck ist, und weil in Ansehung der Wirklichkeit ihr Thun auf Unterschieden beruht, die allein in den Worten liegen.

Virtue is therefore defeated by the way of the world, because its purpose is in fact the abstract, non-actual essence, and because, as regards actuality, its doing rests on differences that lie only in words. rendering for this page

¶389 · 1807 p. 325 · GW 9:212

Remarks and digressions

The Faust lines. Hegel names neither Goethe nor Faust anywhere in the book.^T The verse at ¶360 corresponds to two couplets of Goethe's Faust. Ein Fragment (Leipzig: Göschen, 1790, pp. 24–25), which read, in the OCR of a scanned copy (page images not inspected):^H110

Hegel turns an imperative ("Just despise reason …") into a description of the shape ("It despises …"); he writes Verstand for Vernunft and "gifts" for "power"; and Goethe's "even if he had not given himself to the devil, he would still have to perish" becomes "it has given itself to the devil and must perish" (renderings ours). The bracketed word is garbled in the OCR and inferred.^H110T In the 1790 Fragment the lines are spoken by Mephistopheles, "in Fausts langem Kleide", wearing Faust's long gown (p. 24).^H110

Numbering. The Deutsches Textarchiv transcription counts the verse block as a paragraph of its own (DTA 361); Miller keeps it inside ¶360. From here to ¶401 the DTA count therefore runs one ahead of Miller's ¶, until Miller splits a paragraph at ¶402/403 (Ph10).^T1H78,79

Priests and despots. The raving heart blames the order of the world on "fanatical priests, debauched despots" and their servants (¶377). The same pair returns as Enlightenment's picture of faith, a priesthood "conspiring with despotism" (¶542; Ph13). The echo is our observation; Hegel does not point it out.^T

Connections

A cross-reference that points elsewhere. In the Idea of the Good (1816) Hegel refers the reader to the Phenomenology for the contradiction of an absolute end facing an insurmountable limit of actuality. The critical edition prints the reference as “S. 323ff.”, which might be taken as 1807 p. 323, in this chapter; but the 1816 print reads “S. 548 ff.”, and GW 12 has converted Hegel’s page to its own GW 9 pagination. Both point to the opening of Morality, ¶596 (Ph14).^T8,43

Inside the book. ¶357 points forward both to the ethical world (Ph11) and to morality (Ph14).^T Encyclopaedia. The 1830 Encyclopaedia's own "Phenomenology of Spirit" (§§413–439) gives reason only §§438–439 and has no counterpart to these three shapes (headings checked in English translation).^L45

Sources for Ph9: 1, 8, 43, 45, 78–79, 110.

Ph10Individuality real in and for itself · Die Individualität, welche sich an und für sich selbst reell ist

¶394–437 · 1807 pp. 330–375 · GW 9:214–237 · V.C of (C) (AA) Reason

Context and aim

Active reason ended with the result that the doing of individuality is an end in itself (Ph9, ¶393). Hegel now says that self-consciousness has grasped the concept of itself that at first was only "ours": purpose and reality are no longer opposed. It no longer has to produce a purpose against a world it finds; its doing "is in itself its truth and actuality" (¶394).^T

das Thun ist an ihm selbst seine Wahrheit und Wirklichkeit

doing is in itself its truth and actuality rendering for this page

¶394 · 1807 p. 331 · GW 9:215

The section tests this confidence three times: as individuals at work, each busy with "the matter itself"; as reason that gives moral laws; and as reason that tests them. It ends at the threshold of Spirit with Sophocles' Antigone, whom Hegel names (¶437).^T

Key terms

• ursprüngliche Natur, original nature (¶397–401): the determinate character an individual simply has and acts out.^T
• Werk, work (¶401–406): the deed set out into the world, where it differs from other works only "in magnitude".^T
• die Sache selbst, the matter itself (¶409–418): what persists through the vanishing of single works; the unity of individuality and actuality (¶410).^T
• ehrlich, honest (¶412), and Betrug, deception (heading; ¶418).^T
• Maßstab, standard (¶428), and Tavtologie, tautology (¶431): what is left of reason's moral law once it only tests.^T
• an sich: the work translates the "abstract in-itself" into actual being (¶404).

Structure

A short introduction and three printed subsections; the first is titled "The spiritual animal kingdom and deception, or the matter itself".^T

Introduction ¶394–396; a. spiritual animal kingdom ¶397–418; b. law-giving reason ¶419–428; c. law-testing reason ¶429–437.

Aside: where ¶402 ends. In the 1807 print the passage "Mit dem Werke aber scheint …" (1807 pp. 339–341) is one paragraph. Miller splits it: his ¶402 stops at "… eine schwächere [und] dürftigere Natur", and his ¶403 begins "Gegen diesen unwesentlichen Unterschied der Grösse …" (1807 p. 340, GW 9:219). Because the DTA counts the Faust verse as a paragraph (¶360) and Miller does not, the split brings the two counts back into step from ¶404.^T1H78,79 Pinkard's 2018 translation reportedly does not make the split, so for Miller ¶403–540 Pinkard's number is one lower (Miller ¶437 = Pinkard ¶436), and the two agree again from ¶541; the only source for this is a 2021 blog post by Stephen Cowley, and Pinkard's own front matter was not checked.^I80 Whether the split goes back to Hoffmeister's edition, Miller's base text, is also unchecked.

A passage, step by step

es kann nur das Bewusstseyn des reinen Uebersetzens seiner selbst aus der Nacht der Möglichkeit in den Tag der Gegenwart, des abstracten Ansich in die Bedeutung des wirklichen Seyns, und die Gewissheit haben, dass was in diesem ihm vorkommt, nichts anders ist, als was in jener schlief.

it can only have the consciousness of the pure translation of itself from the night of possibility into the day of the present, of the abstract in-itself into the meaning of actual being, and the certainty that what it meets in the latter is nothing other than what slept in the former. rendering for this page

¶404 · 1807 p. 341 · GW 9:220

ein Bewusstseyn, das eine Sache aufthut, macht vielmehr die Erfahrung, dass die Andern, wie die Fliegen zu frischaufgestellter Milch, herbeyeilen und sich dabey geschäfftig wissen wollen

a consciousness that opens up a matter rather finds that the others hurry along, like flies to freshly set-out milk, and want to know themselves busy with it rendering for this page

¶418 · 1807 p. 356 · GW 9:227

Der Massstab des Gesetzes, den die Vernunft an ihr selbst hat, passt daher allem gleich gut, und ist hiemit in der That kein Massstab.

The standard of law that reason has in itself therefore fits everything equally well, and is thus in fact no standard. rendering for this page

¶431 · 1807 p. 369 · GW 9:234

Remarks and digressions

Antigone, first appearance. At the end of law-testing Hegel puts the ethical laws in Antigone's mouth, in his own German:^T

So gelten sie der Antigone des Sophokles als der Götter ungeschriebnes und untrügliches Recht nicht etwa jetzt und gestern, sondern immerdar lebt es, und keiner weiss, von wannen es erschien.

So they count, for the Antigone of Sophocles, as the gods' unwritten and unerring right: rendering for this page

Not now, indeed, nor yesterday, but for aye
It lives, and no man knows what time it came.

¶437 · 1807 p. 373 · GW 9:236 · verse lines tr. Baillie 1910, I.425

Hegel's "ungeschriebnes und untrügliches" renders Sophocles' ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ (Antigone 454), and the rest renders lines 456–457: οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε κἀχθές, ἀλλʼ ἀεί ποτε / ζῇ ταῦτα, κοὐδεὶς οἶδεν ἐξ ὅτου ʼφάνη. Baillie footnotes the lines as "Sophocles, Antigone, l. 456-7".^TH9,111 Hegel then adds his own gloss: "If I ask after their origin … I have already gone beyond them" (¶437).^T Antigone returns as the central figure of the ethical world (Ph11).

The deposit. The section's last example, in Hegel's text, is a deposit left with me. If I keep it, I commit "no contradiction at all" by the principle of tautology, since I simply stop regarding it as another's (¶437).^T Hegel names no philosopher in V.C.^T

Connections

Inside the book. "Die Sache selbst" is a phrase Hegel already uses in the Preface's first paragraph (¶1), where he warns against thinking that the matter itself is expressed in a work's aims or results.^T The word Pflicht, duty, first occurs in law-giving reason (¶424); it becomes the absolute essence in morality (Ph14, ¶599).^T1 Encyclopaedia. The 1830 Encyclopaedia's "Phenomenology of Spirit" (§§413–439) has no counterpart to these shapes (headings checked in English translation).^L45

Sources for Ph10: 1, 9, 45, 78–80, 111.

Ph11Spirit: the ethical world and Antigone · Der Geist; der wahre Geist, die Sittlichkeit

¶438–483 · 1807 pp. 376–428 · GW 9:238–264 · VI intro and VI.A of (BB) Spirit

Context and aim

Reason becomes spirit when its certainty of being all reality has become truth: it knows the world as itself and itself as its world (¶438).^T

Die Vernunft ist Geist, indem die Gewissheit, alle Realität zu seyn, zur Wahrheit erhoben, und sie sich ihrer selbst als ihrer Welt, und der Welt als ihrer selbst bewusst ist.

Reason is spirit when the certainty of being all reality has been raised to truth, and it is conscious of itself as its world and of the world as itself. rendering for this page

¶438 · 1807 p. 376 · GW 9:238

Something changes in kind here. The shapes so far were shapes of a single consciousness. The shapes of spirit, Hegel says, are "real spirits", "shapes of a world" (¶441).^T Spirit first exists as the ethical life (Sittlichkeit) of a people. It must "sublate the beautiful ethical life" and come to know itself through a series of shapes (¶441).^T Hegel lays out the whole chapter himself: the living ethical world perishes in the formal universality of right; spirit then splits into the world of culture and the world of faith; insight and its spread, Enlightenment, throw both into confusion; spirit returns into itself as morality and, finally, conscience (¶442).^T

Diese unterscheiden sich aber von den vorhergehenden dadurch, dass sie die realen Geister sind, eigentliche Wirklichkeiten, und statt Gestalten nur des Bewusstseyns, Gestalten einer Welt.

But these differ from the preceding ones in that they are the real spirits, actualities in the proper sense, and instead of shapes merely of consciousness, shapes of a world. rendering for this page

¶441 · 1807 p. 380 · GW 9:240

Key terms

• Geist: here first as the shared ethical life of a people, "the individual that is a world" (¶441).^T
• menschliches Gesetz and göttliches Gesetz, human and divine law (¶448–449): the law of the community and its government, and the law of the family, whose deed concerns the dead.^T
• Gemeinwesen, community (¶447), and Familie, family (¶450 ff.).^T
• Schuld and Schicksal, guilt and fate (heading of VI.A.b; "through the deed it becomes guilt", ¶468).^T
• Person and Rechtszustand, person and condition of right (¶477): the "dead spirit" in which all count as equal persons.^T

Structure

The diagram shows the whole of chapter VI as Hegel planned it in ¶442.^T

Introduction to Spirit ¶438–443; A. true spirit ¶444–445; a. ethical world ¶446–463; b. ethical action ¶464–476; c. condition of right ¶477–483. Morality and conscience follow in Ph14 and Ph15.

A passage, step by step

Hegel's example is Sophocles' Antigone, named twice (¶437, ¶470).^T

Das unvermischte Verhältniss aber findet zwischen Bruder und Schwester statt. … Die Schwester aber wird, oder die Frau bleibt der Vorstand des Hauses und die Bewahrerin des göttlichen Gesetzes.

But the unmixed relationship is that between brother and sister. … The sister, however, becomes, or the wife remains, the head of the household and the guardian of the divine law. rendering for this page

¶457, ¶459 · 1807 pp. 395, 397–398 · GW 9:247–248

es muss seine Schuld anerkennen; weil wir leiden, anerkennen wir, dass wir gefehlt

Because of our sufferings we acknowledge we have erred.

¶470 · 1807 p. 412 · GW 9:256 · tr. Baillie 1910, II.468

Diese, — die ewige Ironie des Gemeinwesens — verändert durch die Intrigue den allgemeinen Zweck der Regierung in einen Privatzweck

This, the eternal irony of the community, by intrigue changes the universal purpose of the government into a private purpose rendering for this page

¶475 · 1807 pp. 418–419 · GW 9:259

Remarks and digressions

Antigone's line, as Hegel renders it. The italic sentence in ¶470 is Hegel's German for Antigone 926. Sophocles' heroine says (925–926): ἀλλʼ εἰ μὲν οὖν τάδʼ ἐστὶν ἐν θεοῖς καλά, / παθόντες ἂν ξυγγνοῖμεν ἡμαρτηκότες, "but if these things are noble among the gods, then having suffered we would come to know that we have erred" (rendering ours). Hegel keeps only the second line, drops the "if", and turns the possibility into a statement.^TH111 Mills (1986) argues that the change makes Antigone admit a guilt that Hegel's model of tragic guilt needs.^I112 Baillie marks the line with a footnote (II.468).^H9

The condition of right and Stoicism. Hegel names no period here. He links the condition of right back to his own earlier shape: "What for Stoicism was only the in-itself in abstraction is now an actual world" (¶479).^T

Debates

Irigaray is among the contributors to Mills's collection Feminist Interpretations of G. W. F. Hegel (1996), whose authors disagree among themselves about Hegel.^I115

Misconceptions

• "Hegel says the ethical world is Greece and the condition of right is Rome."The words "Greek" and "Roman" occur nowhere in the book (our search of the 1807 text). Hegel names Sophocles' Antigone (¶437, ¶470) and ties the condition of right to Stoicism (¶479); the historical identifications are the readers'. Redding's SEP entry describes how the shapes of Spirit are mapped onto Western history from the Greeks to Hegel's time.^TI15

Connections

Inside the book. Antigone first appears at the end of law-testing reason (Ph10, ¶437). The person of right returns as the first of three "selves" that conscience compares itself with (¶633; Ph15).^T Encyclopaedia. The 1830 Encyclopaedia's "Phenomenology of Spirit" (§§413–439) has no counterpart to chapter VI (headings checked in English translation).^L45

Sources for Ph11: 9, 15, 45, 111–115.

Ph12Self-alienated spirit: Bildung · Der sich entfremdete Geist; die Bildung

¶484–537 · 1807 pp. 429–485 · GW 9:264–292 · VI.B.I of (BB) Spirit

Context and aim

The ethical world ended in the condition of right: atoms counted as persons, whose substance lay outside them (Ph11). Now spirit has a world it makes, but one in which it does not recognize itself. Hegel's word for this is Entfremdung, alienation, estrangement (¶484–486).^T

Nichts hat einen in ihm selbst gegründeten und inwohnenden Geist, sondern ist ausser sich in einem fremden

Nothing has a spirit grounded and dwelling in itself; each thing is outside itself, in a spirit alien to it rendering for this page

¶486 · 1807 pp. 431–432 · GW 9:265

This world is split in two. On one side is the actual world of culture, a "hard actuality"; over against it, in the element of thought, the world of faith (¶442, ¶486).^T Hegel announces the outcome at once: Enlightenment will overturn both worlds, and "this revolution" brings forth absolute freedom (¶486), the subject of Ph13.^T

Key terms

• Bildung, culture, formation: the individual counts and is actual only through it: "as much culture as it has, so much actuality and power" (¶489).^T
• Entäußerung, externalization, and aufheben: the self is actual only by sublating its natural self (¶489).^T
• Staatsmacht and Reichthum, state power and wealth, the two "essences" of the real world (¶494).^T
• edelmüthig and niederträchtig, the noble and the base consciousness, defined by how they judge those two powers (¶500–503).^T
• Sprache der Zerrissenheit, the language of disruption (¶520), spoken by the zerrissene Bewußtseyn, the torn consciousness (¶521).^T
• Glauben and reine Einsicht, faith and pure insight (¶527–537): two sides of one flight from the actual world into pure consciousness (¶529).^T

Structure

Section B covers both this chapter and the next; its first part, "The world of self-alienated spirit", is the subject here.^T

Introductions ¶484–487; a. culture and its realm of actuality ¶488–526 (no printed subheadings); b. faith and pure insight ¶527–537. Enlightenment and the Terror (¶538–595) follow in Ph13.

A passage, step by step

The culture section climbs from service to flattery to a language that says everything and its opposite. Hegel ends the climb with a musician who sings every part at once.

Die Sprache der Zerrissenheit aber ist die vollkommne Sprache und der wahre existirende Geist dieser ganzen Welt der Bildung.

But the language of disruption is the perfect language and the true existing spirit of this whole world of culture. rendering for this page

¶520 · 1807 p. 465 · GW 9:282

der dreissig Arien, italienische, französische, tragische, komische, von aller Art Charakter, häuffte und vermischte

who piled and mixed up together some thirty airs, Italian, French, tragic, comic, of all sorts and kinds

¶522 · 1807 p. 469 · GW 9:284 · tr. Baillie 1910, II.527 (scan OCR reads "ItaKan")

Diese reine Einsicht ist also der Geist, der allem Bewusstseyn zurufft: seyd für euch selbst, was ihr Alle an euch selbst seyd, — vernünftig.

This pure insight is thus the spirit that calls to all consciousness: be for yourselves what you all are in yourselves, rational. rendering for this page

¶537 · 1807 p. 485 · GW 9:292

Remarks and digressions

Rameau's Nephew, unnamed. The musician is the title figure of Diderot's dialogue Le Neveu de Rameau, which Hegel quotes in Goethe's German translation, Rameau's Neffe (Leipzig: Göschen, 1805). He uses quotation marks but names neither Diderot nor Goethe; the dialogue is quoted at ¶489, ¶522 and ¶545 (Sørensen 2021, pp. 604–605).^I116 None of the three names occurs anywhere in the book (our search of the 1807 text).^T According to the TextGrid edition's description, Goethe translated from a manuscript copy before any French edition existed.^H117

How Hegel changes Goethe's wording. Sørensen calls the quotations verbatim (pp. 604–605).^I116 A comparison with scans of the 1805 print shows small changes:^H118

• ¶489: Goethe has "Das heißen wir Especen, von allen Spitznamen ist dieß der fürchterlichste, denn er bezeichnet die Mittelmäßigkeit …" (1805, p. 310). Hegel drops the lead-in, quotes from "von allen Spitznahmen", and inside his quotation marks also omits Goethe's "ist dieß" ("von allen Spitznahmen der fürchterlichste").^H118T
• ¶522, first quotation (1805, p. 286): Goethe's "verwirrte" (confused) becomes "vermischte" (mixed), and Hegel silently leaves out a clause about the singer imitating "with gait, bearing, gesture" the different singing characters.^H118
• ¶522, second quotation ("eine Faseley von Weisheit und Tollheit …"): one pair of quotation marks covers text from two places about 210 pages apart (pp. 77–78 and p. 290). Diderot's narrator speaks in the first person and past tense ("Ich war betroffen …"); Hegel turns this into what the honest consciousness will feel, and writes "gänzlicher Offenheit und Wahrheit" for Goethe's "seltnen Offenheit". Two phrases were not found in the scan's OCR at all, which proves nothing either way.^H118T

Hegel adds a remark of his own on German usage in ¶489: "to be good in one's kind" (in seiner Art gut) gives the same contempt "an honest face" (¶489).^T

Debates

Misconceptions

• "Hegel quotes Diderot's French."He quotes Goethe's German translation of 1805, without naming either author, and with small changes of his own (¶489, ¶522).^I116H118

Connections

Inside the book. The witty language of the torn consciousness is gathered into a "collection" of its sharpest sayings, and then dissolves into general insight (¶540; Ph13).^T The figure of "honesty" returns from the spiritual animal kingdom (¶412; Ph10), now as the calm consciousness that hears the nephew's speech as folly (¶521–522); the link is our observation.^T Encyclopaedia. The 1830 Encyclopaedia's "Phenomenology of Spirit" (§§413–439) has no counterpart to culture or faith (headings checked in English translation).^L45

Sources for Ph12: 45, 116–118.

Ph13Enlightenment; absolute freedom and terror · Die Aufklärung; die absolute Freyheit und der Schrecken

¶538–595 · 1807 pp. 486–547 · GW 9:292–323 · VI.B.II–III of (BB) Spirit

Context and aim

Pure insight, the other half of the flight from the world of culture (Ph12), now turns "the force of the concept" against faith (¶538).^T It first becomes properly active only in that fight:^T

Noch aber steht über dem eiteln Wissen das Wissen von dem Wesen fest, und die reine Einsicht erscheint erst in eigentlicher Thätigkeit, insofern sie gegen den Glauben auftritt.

But knowledge of the essence still stands firm above vain knowing, and pure insight appears in its proper activity only insofar as it comes forward against faith. rendering for this page

¶540 (DTA 541) · 1807 p. 488 · GW 9:293

Numbering. This one-sentence paragraph is printed on its own in 1807, and the DTA counts it as paragraph 541. Miller gives it no number and joins it to ¶540. From the next paragraph to the end of the book, Miller's ¶ is therefore the DTA count minus one.^T1H78,79 (Other translations' numbering: Ph10.)

Enlightenment gathers up the earlier negative attitudes, skepticism and theoretical and practical idealism, as subordinate shapes of itself (¶541). It sees faith as a mass deceived by a priesthood that "conspires with despotism" (¶542).^T Its own positive truth turns out to be utility: everything is "as much in itself as it is for another; or everything is useful" (¶560). At the end "both worlds are reconciled, and heaven is transplanted down to earth" (¶581).^T Utility then becomes the concept of a new shape: absolute freedom (¶582).^T

Key terms

• reine Einsicht and Aufklärung, pure insight and its spread, Enlightenment (¶541); Aberglaube, superstition (heading of VI.B.II.a).^T
• Nützlichkeit, utility (¶560, ¶582): Enlightenment's truth and the concept that absolute freedom inherits.^T
• absolute Freyheit, absolute freedom (¶584): self-consciousness that knows its certainty of itself as the essence of all the "spiritual masses" (the estates) of the world.^T
• der allgemeine Wille, the general will (¶587–588): Hegel names no author for the phrase.^T
• Faction, faction, and Verdächtig werden, becoming suspect (¶591); Schrecken, terror (¶592).^T
• Negation: absolute freedom can do only negative work; its relation to the single self is "wholly unmediated pure negation" (¶589–590).^T

Structure

Enlightenment has two printed subsections; absolute freedom has none.^T

II. Enlightenment ¶538–540; a. its struggle with superstition ¶541–573; b. its truth ¶574–581; III. absolute freedom and terror ¶582–595.

A passage, step by step

Kein positives Werk noch That kann also die allgemeine Freyheit hervorbringen; es bleibt ihr nur das negative Thun; sie ist nur die Furie des Verschwindens.

No positive work or deed can universal freedom therefore produce; only negative doing is left to it; it is merely the fury of disappearing. rendering for this page

¶589 · 1807 p. 539 · GW 9:319

er ist also der kälteste, platteste Tod, ohne mehr Bedeutung, als das Durchhauen eines Kohlhaupts oder ein Schluck Wassers.

it is thus the coldest, flattest death, with no more meaning than cutting through a head of cabbage or a swallow of water. rendering for this page

¶590 · 1807 pp. 540–541 · GW 9:320

Baillie's 1910 version of the end reads "cleaving a head of cabbage or swallowing a draught of water" (II.599); for "die Furie des Verschwindens" he writes "the rage and fury of disappearance and destruction" (II.598), adding words Hegel does not have.^H9

Remarks and digressions

The fall of the idol. Pure insight spreads "like a scent in an unresisting atmosphere", an infection noticed only when it is too late to fight (¶545). Then Hegel quotes Rameau's Nephew once more, unnamed:^T

„an einem schönen Morgen gibt sie mit dem Ellbogen dem Kameraden einen Schubb und Bautz! Baradautz! der Götze liegt am Boden.“

"one fine morning it gives its comrade a shove with the elbow, and bang! crash! the idol lies on the floor." rendering for this page

¶545 · 1807 p. 493 · GW 9:295–296

Goethe's 1805 translation has "an einem hübschen Morgen giebt er … seinem Kameraden einen Schub" (pp. 282–283; both scans checked read "hübschen"). Hegel writes "schönen", changes the subject from "he" to "she" (pure insight, sie), and writes "dem Kameraden" and "Schubb".^H118T He then adds a line of his own: "one fine morning, whose noon is not bloody, if the infection has penetrated all the organs of spiritual life" (¶545).^T

Debates

Misconceptions

• "Hegel celebrates the Terror."The text calls absolute freedom "the fury of disappearing", whose only work is a death without meaning (¶589–590), and the shape gives way to morality (¶595).^T

Connections

Inside the book. "The fear of their absolute lord, death" (¶593) repeats the words of the lordship and bondage section, "the fear of death, the absolute lord" (¶194). The echo is our observation; both passages are in the text.^T The "new shape of moral spirit" (¶595) is the subject of Ph14.

Sources for Ph13: 1, 9, 78–79, 95, 118.

Ph14Morality: the moral world-view and dissemblance · Der seiner selbst gewisse Geist. Die Moralität

¶596–631 · 1807 pp. 548–581 · GW 9:323–340 · VI.C.a–b of (BB) Spirit

Context and aim

The Terror ended with absolute freedom passing "into another land", that of moral spirit (Ph13, ¶595). Hegel looks back over the whole chapter: the ethical world left only the abstract person of right; culture and faith removed that abstraction; through complete alienation the substance became the general will and finally the self's own property (¶596).^T

Hier also scheint das Wissen endlich seiner Wahrheit vollkommen gleich geworden zu seyn

Here, then, knowing seems at last to have become completely equal to its truth rendering for this page

¶596 · 1807 p. 548 · GW 9:323

"Seems": the word carries the chapter. Moral self-consciousness knows duty as the absolute essence and is bound by nothing else; but over against it stands nature, an independent whole, indifferent to whether it is moral (¶599).^T Everything that follows comes from trying to hold these two together.

Key terms

• Pflicht, duty (¶599): for moral self-consciousness, the absolute Wesen, its own pure consciousness.^T
• Glückseligkeit, happiness (¶602): what nature may or may not grant to the dutiful.^T
• postuliren, to postulate (¶602–603): to think a harmony "as necessarily being" without having it.^T
• der heilige Gesetzgeber, the holy lawgiver of pure duty (¶607): a consciousness outside the actual one, where duty is perfectly at home.^T
• Verstellung, dissemblance, displacement (¶617, ¶621). Hegel plays on the verbs: as soon as consciousness has aufgestellt (set up) one moment, it verstellt (shifts, disguises) it again (¶617).^T

Structure

A short introduction and two printed subsections; conscience, the third, follows in Ph15.^T

Introduction ¶596–598; a. the moral world-view ¶599–615; b. dissemblance ¶616–631. The further divisions in Baillie's 1910 contents ("(1) The postulated harmony of duty and reality …", vol. II pp. 610–639) are the translator's, not Hegel's.^H9

A passage, step by step

die Harmonie der Moralität und der Glückseligkeit ist gedacht als nothwendig seyend, oder sie ist postulirt.

the harmony of morality and happiness is thought as necessarily being, or it is postulated. rendering for this page

¶602 · 1807 p. 553 · GW 9:326

Die Vollendung derselben aber ist ins unendliche hinauszuschieben; denn wenn sie wirklich einträte, so höhe sich das moralische Bewusstseyn auf.

But its completion is to be pushed out into infinity; for if it actually came about, moral consciousness would sublate itself. rendering for this page

¶603 · 1807 p. 556 · GW 9:327

sie ist, um einen kantischen Ausdruck hier, wo er am passendsten ist, zu gebrauchen, ein ganzes Nest gedankenloser Widersprüche.

it is, to use a Kantian expression here where it fits best, a whole nest of thoughtless contradictions. rendering for this page

¶617 · 1807 p. 565 · GW 9:332

Remarks and digressions

Kant's "whole nest". Kant is named in the book only twice, both times by the adjective: here, and in the Preface's "kantische … Triplicität" (¶50).^T The phrase comes from the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant says of the cosmological proof of God's existence:^H119

daß in diesem kosmologischen Argumente sich ein ganzes Nest von dialektischen Anmaßungen verborgen halte, welches die transzendentale Kritik leicht entdecken und zerstören kann

that in this cosmological argument a whole nest of dialectical pretensions lies hidden, which transcendental critique can easily discover and destroy rendering for this page

Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2nd ed., fifth section "Von der Unmöglichkeit eines kosmologischen Beweises vom Dasein Gottes" (modernized text, Projekt Gutenberg)

Kant aimed the phrase at speculative theology. Hegel turns it on a moral world-view built from postulates, a harmony of virtue and happiness, a holy lawgiver, endless progress. He does not say here whose world-view that is.^T

A warning in the word. Hegel's verb plays matter for reading the section. "Verstellen" means both to shift something from its place and to disguise; the moral consciousness does both, and knows it does, "so that it is in earnest with none of them" (¶617).^T

Connections

Encyclopaedia. Looking back in 1830, Hegel says the Phenomenology could not keep to the mere form of consciousness, because the standpoint it reaches "pre-supposed" richer material:^L10

it pre-supposed the existence of the concrete formations of consciousness, such as individual and social morality, art and religion

Enc. 1830 §25 Remark · tr. Wallace 1892

Logic. In the Idea of the Good (1816) Hegel calls the good “no more than a postulate” and sends the reader back to this chapter:^T43

Die vollständige Ausbildung des unaufgelößten Widerspruchs, jenes absoluten Zwecks, dem die Schranke dieser Wirklichkeit unüberwindlich gegenübersteht, ist in der Phänomenologie des Geistes … näher betrachtet worden.

The full development of the unresolved contradiction, of that absolute end which the limit of this actuality confronts as insurmountable, has been considered more closely in the Phenomenology of Spirit … rendering for this page

Doctrine of the Concept (1816), “B. Die Idee des Guten” · GW 12:233. The omitted page reference reads “S. 548 ff.” in the 1816 print, that is 1807 p. 548, the opening of this chapter (¶596); GW 12 converts it to GW 9:323, the same place.

“S. 323” might be taken as a page of the 1807 print, which would point to virtue and the way of the world (Ph9); the 1816 print rules that out.^T43 Inside the book. Duty first appears with law-giving reason (¶424; Ph10); conscience, "the third self", follows (Ph15).^T

Sources for Ph14: 9–10, 43, 119.

Ph15Conscience, the beautiful soul, evil and forgiveness · Das Gewissen, die schöne Seele, das Böse und seine Verzeihung

¶632–671 · 1807 pp. 581–624 · GW 9:340–362 · VI.C.c of (BB) Spirit

Context and aim

The moral world-view fled back into itself and found a spirit that simply acts conscientiously, without postulates (Ph14, ¶631). Hegel calls this self of conscience "the third self" that has come from "the third world of spirit", and compares it briefly with the earlier two (¶633): the person of right (Ph11) and the self of absolute freedom (Ph13).^T

For conscience, its own knowing, as conviction, is duty (¶639). It needs no lawgiver beyond. But conviction must be said to count for others: "we see language again as the existence of spirit", self-consciousness that is for others (¶652).^T The section then shows two figures, the one who acts and the one who judges, and how they are reconciled. It is the last shape of chapter VI and leads straight into Religion.^T

Key terms

• Gewissen, conscience (¶632), and Ueberzeugung, conviction (¶639).^T
• moralische Genialität, moral genius (¶655): conscience that knows the inner voice of its immediate knowing "as a divine voice".^T
• schöne Seele, beautiful soul (¶658): conscience that will not act, for fear of staining its purity.^T
• das Böse and Heucheley, evil and hypocrisy (¶660): how the judge sees the one who acts.^T
• Verzeihung, forgiveness (¶670), and the "reconciling Yes" (¶671).^T
• Anerkennung: the one who confesses expects "recognizing existence" from the other (¶666); forgiveness recognizes as good what thought had called evil (¶670).^T

Structure

Hegel prints no subheadings inside this section; Baillie's 1910 contents divide it into three points of his own (II.642).^H9

Roughly: conscience and conviction ¶632–646; language and the beautiful soul ¶647–658; evil and its forgiveness ¶659–671 (the same three steps as Baillie's).

A passage, step by step

Es gibt keinen Helden für den Kammerdiener; nicht aber weil jener nicht ein Held, sondern weil dieser — der Kammerdiener ist

There is no hero for the valet; not, however, because the former is not a hero, but because the latter is — the valet rendering for this page

¶665 · 1807 p. 616 · GW 9:358

Allein auf das Eingeständniss des Bösen: Ich bins, erfolgt nicht diese Erwiederung des gleichen Geständnisses.

But the confession of the evil one, "It is I", is not answered by the same confession. rendering for this page

¶667 · 1807 p. 618 · GW 9:359

Die Wunden des Geistes heilen, ohne dass Narben bleiben

The wounds of the spirit heal and leave no scars behind.

¶669 (DTA 670) · 1807 p. 620 · GW 9:360 · tr. Baillie 1910, II.679

Das versöhnende Ja, worin beyde Ich von ihrem entgegengesetzten Daseyn ablassen, ist das Daseyn des zur Zweyheit ausgedehnten Ichs … es ist der erscheinende Gott mitten unter ihnen, die sich als das reine Wissen wissen.

The reconciling Yes, in which both I's let go of their opposed existence, is the existence of the I expanded into a duality … it is the appearing God in the midst of those who know themselves as pure knowing. rendering for this page

¶671 · 1807 pp. 623–624 · GW 9:362

Remarks and digressions

The beautiful soul. The phrase occurs in only three paragraphs of the book: ¶658, ¶668 and, looking back, ¶795.^T1 At ¶658 it glows away within itself and vanishes "like a shapeless vapor that dissolves into air"; Baillie renders the start of the sentence "it becomes a sorrow-laden 'beautiful soul,' as it is called" (II.668), for Hegel's "eine unglückliche sogenannte schöne Seele".^TH9 Baillie's own prefatory note to the section links it with "a type of spiritual life cultivated by the 'Moravians'" (II.640); that is the translator's gloss, not Hegel's.^H9

The valet. Hegel takes a proverb and turns it: the failure lies with the valet's way of seeing, not with the hero (¶665).

Debates

Misconceptions

• "Hegel agrees that no man is a hero to his valet."He quotes the saying to reverse its point: there is no hero for the valet "not because the former is not a hero, but because the latter is — the valet", with whom the hero has to do not as a hero but as one who eats, drinks and dresses (¶665).^T

Connections

Inside the book. "The appearing God" (¶671) is the bridge to Religion (Ph16). In Absolute Knowing Hegel returns to the beautiful soul as the part of self-certain spirit "that stays within its concept" (¶795), and makes acting conscience one of the two sides that absolute knowing unites (¶796; Ph17).^T

Sources for Ph15: 1, 9, 86, 98.

Ph16Religion · Die Religion

¶672–787 · 1807 pp. 625–741 · GW 9:363–421 · VII = (CC) of the 1807 table of contents

Context and aim

Conscience ended with "the appearing God" among those who forgive (Ph15, ¶671). Religion has turned up before, Hegel says, but only from the standpoint of a consciousness that is conscious of an absolute being outside it, as in the unhappy consciousness, the "pain" of spirit (¶672–673). Now religion is to be the self-consciousness of spirit itself.^T

allein vom Standpunkte des Bewusstseyns aus, das sich des absoluten Wesens bewusst ist; nicht aber ist das absolute Wesen an und für sich selbst, nicht das Selbstbewusstseyn des Geistes in jenen Formen erschienen.

but only from the standpoint of consciousness, which is conscious of the absolute being; the absolute being in and for itself, the self-consciousness of spirit, did not appear in those forms. rendering for this page

¶672 · 1807 p. 625 · GW 9:363

Hegel also warns how not to read the order of the book. The earlier moments, consciousness, self-consciousness, reason and spirit, are "not to be represented in time" in relation to religion; "only the whole spirit is in time", and only its shapes follow one another (¶679).^T

Der ganze Geist nur ist in der Zeit, und die Gestalten, welche Gestalten des ganzen Geistes als solchen sind, stellen sich in einer Aufeinanderfolge dar

Only the whole spirit is in time, and the shapes that are shapes of the whole spirit as such present themselves in a succession rendering for this page

¶679 · 1807 p. 630 · GW 9:365

Key terms

• Absolute: here "the absolute being" (das absolute Wesen), which religion first represents as an object (¶672).^T
• natürliche Religion, natural religion (¶684–698): spirit knows itself in natural shapes, light, plant and animal, the artificer's works.^T
• Kunst-Religion, art-religion (¶699–747): spirit as artist; statue, hymn, cult, festival, then epic, tragedy and comedy (¶729, ¶733, ¶744).^T
• offenbare Religion, revealed religion (¶748–787): the absolute being has the shape of a self-consciousness that is an existing object (¶760).^T
• Vorstellung, representation: the community grasps its reconciliation as a past event and a beyond; "its reconciliation is therefore in its heart, but still divided from its consciousness" (¶787).^T

Structure

Three forms of religion, each with Hegel's own subheadings except the last.^T

Introduction ¶672–683; A. natural religion ¶684–698 (a. light ¶685–688, b. plant and animal ¶689–690, c. artificer ¶691–698); B. art-religion ¶699–747 (a. abstract ¶705–719, b. living ¶720–726, c. spiritual work of art ¶727–747); C. revealed religion ¶748–787.

A passage, step by step

At the turn from art-religion to revealed religion Hegel looks back at the world of art-religion (he names no people) and asks what its works are now for us.^T

Die Bildsäulen sind nun Leichname, denen die belebende Seele, so wie die Hymne Worte, deren Glauben entflohen ist; … Sie sind nun das, was sie für uns sind, — vom Baume gebrochne schöne Früchte, ein freundliches Schicksal reichte sie uns dar, wie ein Mädchen jene Früchte präsentirt

The statues are now corpses whose animating soul has fled, as the hymns are words whose faith has fled; … They are now what they are for us: beautiful fruits broken from the tree; a friendly fate has handed them to us, as a girl offers those fruits rendering for this page

¶753 · 1807 p. 703 · GW 9:402

The image depends on a double sense Hegel uses again at the book's end: Erinnerung is memory, and literally a going-inward (¶808; Ph17).^T

Remarks and digressions

Unnamed religions. Natural religion has three shapes: the "pure, all-containing light-being of sunrise" (¶686), the innocence of "flower religion" turning into the guilt of "animal religion" (¶689), and the artificer, who works by instinct "as bees build their cells" (¶691).^T Hegel names no people; he does name the pyramids and obelisks as the artificer's crystals (¶692) and the Sphinx in the tragedy section (¶737).^T Findlay's analysis in Miller's translation labels the three shapes Persia, India and Egypt.^I78

"God has died." Hegel calls it "the hard word" and places it in the mouth of the unhappy consciousness (¶752); revealed religion then holds that through the incarnation and death of the divine being, "the divine being is reconciled with its existence" (¶784).^T

Debates

Misconceptions

• "The Phenomenology announces that God is dead.""The hard word that God has died" is the pain of the unhappy consciousness, the counterpart of comic consciousness (¶752). The chapter goes on to the reconciliation of the divine being with its existence (¶784), and the community's reconciliation is still "in its heart" only (¶787).^T

Connections

Encyclopaedia. In the 1830 Encyclopaedia, absolute spirit is divided into art, revealed religion and philosophy (contents of Wallace's 1894 translation). The first two match by title the 1807 art-religion and revealed religion; the third is called philosophy, where the 1807 book has absolute knowing.^L120 In §25 Remark he says the Phenomenology had to presuppose "concrete formations" such as art and religion (Ph14).^L10 Inside the book. What religion has as content in representation, absolute knowing has as the self's own doing (¶797; Ph17).^T

Sources for Ph16: 10, 15, 32, 78, 120.

Ph17Absolute knowing · Das absolute Wissen

¶788–808 · 1807 pp. 742–765 · GW 9:422–434 · VIII = (DD) of the 1807 table of contents

Context and aim

Revealed religion had the right content, absolute spirit, but in the wrong form: as representation, an object over against consciousness (Ph16).^T

Der Geist der offenbaren Religion hat sein Bewusstseyn als solches noch nicht überwunden, oder, was dasselbe ist, sein wirkliches Selbstbewusstseyn ist nicht der Gegenstand seines Bewusstseyns

The spirit of revealed religion has not yet overcome its consciousness as such; or, what is the same, its actual self-consciousness is not the object of its consciousness rendering for this page

¶788 · 1807 p. 742 · GW 9:422

The last chapter does not add a new shape. It "recollects" the object through the moments already met: immediate being, which "corresponds to immediate consciousness"; being-for-other and being-for-self, which correspond to perception; essence or the universal, which corresponds to understanding (¶789).^T Then it joins two lines of the book. The concept found its fulfillment once in acting, self-certain spirit, conscience, and once in religion (¶796). "What in religion was content, or the form of representing an other, is here the self's own doing" (¶797).^T

Gans's obituary had Hegel finish the book "under the thunder of the cannons" of Jena (October 1806). Rosenkranz (1844, about p. 227) qualifies this: it is not wrong insofar as Hegel was about to send off the last sheets to meet the publisher's deadline.^H16

Key terms

• das absolute Wissen, absolute knowing: the phrase itself occurs in only two paragraphs, ¶798 and the last, ¶808.^T1
• Begriff: in absolute knowing, spirit has gained "the pure element of its existence, the concept" (¶805).^T
• Zeit, time: "the concept itself that is there"; spirit appears in time as long as it has not grasped its pure concept (¶801).^T
• Erfahrung: "nothing is known that is not in experience" (¶802).^T
• Er-Innerung, recollection, written with a hyphen: memory as going-into-oneself (¶808).^T
• begriffne Geschichte, comprehended history, and Schädelstätte, "place of skulls", Golgotha (¶808).^T

Structure

No subheadings; Baillie's three-part summary in his 1910 contents (II.800) is the translator's.^H9

Object and self, conscience and religion united ¶788–797; science, time, experience, history ¶798–804; science and phenomenology ¶805; nature, history, the goal ¶806–808.

A passage, step by step

The book ends with one long sentence and two lines of verse run into the prose.

Aber die Er-Innerung hat sie aufbewahrt und ist das Innre und die in der That höhere Form der Substanz.

But re-collection, inwardizing, has preserved them, and is the inner and in fact higher form of substance. rendering for this page

¶808 · 1807 pp. 764–765 · GW 9:434

Das Ziel, das absolute Wissen, oder der sich als Geist wissende Geist hat zu seinem Wege die Erinnerung der Geister … beyde zusammen, die begriffne Geschichte, bilden die Erinnerung und die Schädelstätte des absoluten Geistes, die Wirklichkeit, Wahrheit und Gewissheit seines Throns, ohne den er das leblose Einsame wäre; nur — aus dem Kelche dieses Geisterreiches schäumt ihm seine Unendlichkeit.

The goal, absolute knowing, or spirit that knows itself as spirit, has for its path the recollection of the spirits … both together, comprehended history, form the recollection and the Golgotha of absolute spirit, the actuality, truth and certainty of its throne, without which it would be lifeless and alone; only — from the chalice of this realm of spirits foams forth for it its infinity. rendering for this page

¶808 · 1807 p. 765 · GW 9:434

Baillie: "Both together, or History comprehended conceptually, form at once the recollection and the golgotha of Absolute Spirit" (II.823).^H9 Hegel uses Schädelstätte only once before: in phrenology, for the places on the skull assigned to each faculty and passion (¶335). The echo of "spirit is a bone" is our observation, not Hegel's claim.^T

Remarks and digressions

The Schiller lines. The last words adapt the closing couplet of Schiller's poem "Die Freundschaft", first printed in the Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782 (p. 151):^H121

Hegel adds "nur —", writes "Kelche" for "Kelch", "dieses Geisterreiches" (this realm of spirits) for "des ganzen Seelenreiches" (the whole realm of souls), and "seine Unendlichkeit" for "— die Unendlichkeit"; the DTA prints his lines run on, not as verse.^TH121,122 In Schiller the "him" is God: the stanza opens "Freundlos war der große Weltenmeister, / Fühlte Mangel – darum schuf er Geister" (1879 Cotta text).^H122

¶805: phenomenology and science. In science the moments appear "no longer as determinate shapes of consciousness" but as determinate concepts; and conversely:^T

Umgekehrt entspricht jedem abstracten Momente der Wissenschaft eine Gestalt des erscheinenden Geistes überhaupt. Wie der daseyende Geist nicht reicher ist, als sie, so ist er in seinem Inhalte auch nicht ärmer.

Conversely, to every abstract moment of science there corresponds a shape of appearing spirit in general. As existing spirit is not richer than science, so it is not poorer in its content either. rendering for this page

¶805 · 1807 p. 762 · GW 9:432

Hegel never gives a table of these correspondences: "Logik" occurs in only three paragraphs of the book (¶37, ¶48, ¶130), and none lists them.^T1 Detailed maps of chapters onto Logic categories are commentators' proposals, all contested.^I32

Debates

Misconceptions

• "Absolute knowing means knowing everything."Hegel ties it to experience, "nothing is known that is not in experience" (¶802), and says existing spirit is "not richer" and "not poorer" in content than science (¶805). What is absolute is the form: the self knows the content as its own doing (¶797).^T

Connections

Logic. In the 1832 edition of the Doctrine of Being Hegel writes that the Phenomenology presents consciousness as having the concept of science, pure knowing, as its result, so that the Logic presupposes it:^T3

daß die Phänomenologie des Geistes, die Wissenschaft des Bewußtseyns, die Darstellung davon ist, daß das Bewußtseyn den Begriff der Wissenschaft, d. i. das reine Wissen, zum Resultate hat.

that the Phenomenology of Spirit, the science of consciousness, is the presentation of the fact that consciousness has the concept of science, that is, pure knowing, as its result. rendering for this page

"Womit muß der Anfang der Wissenschaft gemacht werden?" (1832) · GW 21:54

Inside the book. The Preface had said that when the Phenomenology concludes, the movement of the moments in the element of knowing "is logic or speculative philosophy" (¶37).^T ¶797 speaks of knowing "this subject as the substance"; the echo of the Preface's demand to grasp the true "as subject" as much as substance (¶17) is our observation; on substance in the series, see the Spinoza page.^T The beautiful soul returns at ¶795 (Ph15).^T

Sources for Ph17: 1, 3, 9, 15–16, 32, 59, 62, 95, 121–124.