Must (self) consciousness have “desire” or is it rather the case that is only through desire that self-consciousness can experience?
His reasoning for why desire must concern life is obtuse; something about it having to confront infinity (which refers to more garble back in the previous section) and infinity necessarily including life, etc ad absurdum.
SC is defined as “the return from otherness” [167]
SC is defined as “the motionless tautology of: ‘I am I'” [167]
SC is explained as the movement between sense perception qua appearance versus itself.
Example of garble:
For the in-itself, or the universal result of the relation of the Understanding to the inwardness of things, is the distinguishing of what is not to be distinguished, or the unity of what is distinguished. But this unity is, as we have seen, just as much its repulsion from itself; and this Notion sunders itself into the antithesis of self-consciousness and life: the former is the unity for which the infinite unity of the differences is; the latter, however, is only this unity itself, so that it is not at the same time for itself. [168]
This is meant to somehow prove that the object is an independent living thing (although only implicitly!)
It gets even worse in [169+] as it characterizes this “determination of life”.
[174] Per desire, SC seeks to negate the other.
Q[175] “self-consciousness, by its negative relation to the object, is unable to supersede it”
– – since each time it destroys it, it loses an other by which to define itself and fulfil its desire.
Q[175] “Self-consciousness achieves its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness”
– – via the other negating itself within itself
Q[177] “It is in self-consciousness, in the Notion of Spirit, that consciousness first finds its turning-point, where it leaves behind it the colourful show of the sensuous here-and-now and the nightlike void of the supersensible beyond, and steps out into the spiritual daylight of the present.”
New sub-section: “A. INDEPENDENCE AND DEPENDENCE OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS: LORDSHIP AND BONDAGE”
Q[178] “Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.”
– – i.e in receiving “recognition”
When SC is faced with another SC, then it (the first) is made to “come out of itself” [179], i.e. since it is an other in itself (for the second), and also since now it contains a moment in which its consciousness extends to that other (cf. object for sense-certainty).
– – it overcomes this by recognizing the other, and allowing the other to recognize itself in turn, thus although it must give up its goal to be conscious of itself alone, it receives confirmation of itself as objective. Nb. this is mutual, i.e. according via each self by itself.
I am confused by the order of things. First Hegel describes the progress of desire into mutual recognition, but then backtracks, and describes the scenario of the life and death struggle. He says that “now” to be investigated is how this experience “appears to self-consciousness” [185], but then what was what came before? A logical extrapolation? Or was he just paving the way?
The first meeting of egos:
Q[186] …”they are for one another like ordinary objects, independent shapes, individuals submerged in the being of Life”…
– – apparently, they lack true self-certainty, because that requires self-certainty to be presented in an object, i.e. as is made possible only by mutual recognition
Q[187] “The presentation of itself, however, as the pure abstraction of self-consciousness consists in showing itself as the pure negation of its objective mode, or in showing that it is not attached to any specific existence, not to the individuality common to existence as such, that it is not attached to life.”
– – this involves both wishing to negate the other, and each staking its own life (thus proving that is not attached to anything and therefore pure SC)
Q[187] “And it is only through staking one’s life that freedom is won ; only thus is it proved that for self consciousness, its essential being is not being, not the immediate form in which it appears, not its submergence in the expanse of life, but rather that there is nothing present in it which could not be regarded as a vanishing moment, that it is only pure being-for-self.”
– – Oh dear.
Q[188] By dying, the C puts an end to its “consciousness in its alien setting of natural existence” – – I like that phrase, which is possible due to the fact that the C staked its life on its not being native or due or dependent on anything else, even its natural existence which is therefore alien.
– – the trial by death is self defeating, since it leaves the victor with nothing, except perhaps for the logical lesson that it must retain the life of the other if it is to continue to assert its own self-certainty
– – by [189] the victor (aka lord) allows the loser (aka bondsman) to survive, thus enabling its own need
– – aka master-slave relation
<TANGENT> 1. I exist in a state of mind of awareness of self as separate from all that is around me. 2. I see another that appears like another ego. 3. This makes me aware of myself as both an ego pole and, separately, as a subject-pole of the other ego; a transient passive recognition of the other. 4. This is an ambiguous position to be in, and I remove myself from “over there” and back into myself, as the ego pole. 5. But now there is another independent thing. 6. From this perspective, everything is subservient to my awareness, and everything is only the subject of my consciousness. 7. From this perspective I practically I have no choice but to treat the other as a thing – but as a thing that must be subject. 8. Therefore I dance a dance of the life and death struggle, partially because I am above life, and partially because I am merely trying to play with the other but it is resisting forcing me to force it back. 9. If I destroy the other, then I have proven my self qua self-contained, but I cannot continue to experience it, i.e. experience both my life and an other’s being subservient to me. 10. I can, however, continue to experience it if I engage an other as a slave. *nb. what I am trying to do here, is show how it is because of the perspective the “I” finds itself in, that these events and actions must take place. The best way to perceive this as a truth is to meditate until present in that perspective, and then imagine the initial events and then their consequences. Without this exercise I found it difficult to comprehend the motivations, and became entangled in pseudo psychology.
…
New sub-section “B”
Q[197] “In thinking, I am free, because I am not in an other, but remain simply and solely in communion with myself…”
