Re. stoicism:
“The retreat towards inner self-identity cannot bring freedom for an embodied subject whose real freedom must thus be externally expressed in a way of life. Stoicism is thus in contradiction with itself, it is a putative realization of freedom which is, in fact, its negation. As such it must go under. The core intuition, that conceptual thought is at the root of things, this is a permanent gain, but the claim to inner freedom collapses.” p159
Re. skepticism:
“As fast as we call this changing reality into question in order to experience ourselves as immutable and self-identical, our own inner emptiness forces us to accept that we are embodied in the mutable and self-external.” p159
{?Is the difference btw stcsm and skptcsm that the former holds *explicitly* that determinateness exists outside, whereas the latter holds the same but *implicitly*? Perhaps what seems to be significantly different, viz. “i am master of thoughts, vs “all is thoughts”, is (and this, more than those summaries, is my point) actually a subtle difference}
{Is the question for this subsection “B.IV.B” freedom; what is freedom, or, are you free, or how do you know that you are free?
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p160 re unhappy c.
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(iii) Thence, that (ii) division is felt as a loss, yearning to be reunited with the immutable. But qua individual/particular, he could never possibly be united with the unchanging.
This relationship with the transcendental, viz. striving to be united to, is read by H like a religious one. And Taylor notes that the origin can be seen, here, of Feuerbachian and Marxian conception of religious consciousness as alienated (nb. those two had a different conception of religion than H, as they anthromorphized Geist into a generic man).
This section refers implicitly to stages of Christian history. E.g. crusades are an attempt to reunite with Jesus, but whom qua particular must always recede, and that leads men to seek unity with God via religious community.
Then medieval church: fails to unify man/god. Hierarchical nature of church reflects subordination of men, for whom the universal is beyond, but that servitude leads men to realize the universal within themselves. T notes that it is informed by H’s 1790’s religious writings.
T only gives unhappy c. p160. 161 says that now a “higher phase” is reached by c., but I am not sure what H calls this. T says that H seems to identify it with the renaissance and the insight that rational thought is what underlies all reality (the world and the self), thus inducing a larger integrity (and realizing the aims of the stoic). And now, H says, the end of the chapter of S.C. has been reached.
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p161 re. ch V “REASON”
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T will only devote a little to this. {Relative to its size}
“Its starting point is as we saw where men reach the intuition that rationality, i.e., the principle of their own thought, determines all reality, and hence they are certain to be ‘ at home ‘ in the world. Or as Hegel puts it in a lapidary phrase, ‘ Reason is the certainty of consciousness that it is all reality ‘ (Phg 176) //
The chapter ends in a transition in which the individual consciousness is shown to be an inadequate vehicle for spirit, and this grounds a basic shift in the PhG, which will follow henceforth supra-individual embodiments of subjectivity,” p161
3 parts to this chapter.
part 1 parallels the chapter on “C” – seeks to see things as rationally determined. It follows empirical science (first through the observations of regularity, and eventually searching for laws of nature) as it tries to find the rational necessity that underlies nature, first in inanimate, animate – science finds laws but they are contingent and unexplainable (except by speculative phil) – and (nb. the progression is due to its instinct as to where it will fine self-maintaining form) then man, but ultimately fails when it treats man exclusively as object (cf. man as given plus as self-made {cf. unhappy c}).
All it found was contingencies, which are fine (for science) but don’t fulfil the hunger of observing reason.
—II—
part 2 parallels chapter on “SC”. And just as reason was confident in finding rational necessity in nature, so rational SC is confident that it will find satisfaction in the world.
– Starts with the seeker of pleasure. This ego is evolved*, so already expects to find itself in the world (cf. slave’s discovery). The paradigm is sexual, wherein the other is not consumed but only has its nature of “other-being”** removed.
*{This is confusing for me, since in the intro to Reason it sounded like the past was virtually forgotten}
– H has in mind the Enlight. idea that natural man can find right within his desires (viz. pleasure) (per nature qua harmonious whole, nb. per the principle of Reason), and this suits H.
– But this man acts as an individual (seeking his own pleasure), even if he thinks in universals, hence his fulfilment is only a particular one.
– H links pleasure and death:
“Man who defines his fulfilment as that of pleasure experienced by him as a particular faces his inevitable demise as total annihilation.” p163
– It would require man to see himself qua something larger for death to not be a total annihilation. Such a reconciliation between man and fate, H writes, is a condition in which “consciousness . . .w ould recognize . . . its own goal and doing in fate, and its fate in its own goal and doing, would recognize its own essence in this necessity ” (PhG, 265).
– – Whereas for the particularity man, there is only “a pure leap into the opposed term” [op cit]
– T notes that this is the 2nd time this situation has arisen. First with uhc, and third will be end ch.VI on evil/forgiveness (where it transits into absolute k.)
“the consciousness of virtue is portrayed as a knight, a sort of Don Quixote, who cannot effectively combat the world of egoistic actors, precisely because this world provides the only conditions of realization of the universal in the name of which he fights.” p167
Next step = “a figure of self-consciousness which knows itself as realizing the universal in its actions.” p167
—III—
part 3: Individual by now perceives the unity of reality and his own goals, via the common root of reason.
H tarries in this part to explore other ideas, incl. responding to ideas/people contemporary (e.g. Kant)
This unity comes about in Geist reflected in the life of a people, which H calls “ethical substance”. The individual is a manifestation of this. (Nb. H is moving the focus, for the next chapter, towards the supra-individual, with the individual as an emanation thereof).
“The ‘ ethical substance’ (sittliche Substanz) can be thought of as ‘ the essence of self-consciousness, but this, in turn, is the reality (Wirklichkeit) and determinate existence (Dasein) of the substance, its self and will’. (PhG, 3 1 2).”
The Geist of a people can only be real via individual subjects, but if they are not aware of this, then it is less developed consciously, like the Greek states. The development requires the individual being able to see themselves in the laws/structures of their state. H believes that this is occurring around him.
One of the positions H regards is (unnamed yet) Kantian, as ‘law testing reason’. Basically argues against deontology, since it is not enough to reason laws, they must be due/derived from the social Geist (pull of society T calls it). Thus K is only a steppingstone of development.
