I’ve been reading Charles Taylor’s “Hegel”, and I want to describe his interpretation and contrast it to my own first reading. Taylor’s reading is informed by his understanding of the intellectual ecosystem from which Hegel’s philosophy grew, which includes the German Romantics. Some of this I have summarized, but it can be simplified as a desire to provide an intellectual basis for human expression – how people can live free and exist in a manner that is true to their nature. Furthermore, it was intended that such a philosophy would also show how man is akin to nature, in other words, that the characterization of people as subjects should be due (somehow) to the characterization of the world as subject.
I will explain Taylor’s reading of the beginning of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, the section on “Sense-certainty”, and in doing so, will indicate how Hegel fulfills the philosophical interests of his generation.
Initiating Hegel’s project
Hegel’s investigations depend on the following two suppositions: One, is that everything is related and part of the Absolute entirety of reality, and two, given the dialectic process, it follows that any point can be expanded upon to reveal the whole.
There is a sense (therefore) in which Hegel’s entire project is a closed loop, or as if he were (Taylor suggests) pulling himself up via his bootstraps. But at this stage (at least) it seems fine: Hegel takes a scenario – that of primitive consciousness – and describes its experiences. It is not necessary to believe in the Geist in order to follow the point, but it does help explain Hegel’s motivation. Namely, he is aiming to prove that human subjectivity is an attitude of Absolute totality, and that the appearance of flaws or contradictions are merely due the finite-nature of a thing (i.e. that anything is perfect when perceived as an element of the Absolute whole).
It follows that Hegel may start his project with the topic of consciousness, merely because it is as good as any other topic, since all finite topics are inherently flawed, and their perfection will always lead to the same place: the Geist. There are of course other reasons for Hegel to start with basic consciousness, e.g. he wants to justify the human experience, etc., but in any case he does. Specifically he starts with the most basic attitude (or “shape”) of consciousness, sense-certainty*.
A few more words on his method: Hegel believes in the dialectical method. Not just at a philosophical tool, but as something that occurs in reality. Thus he believes that there are contradictions in sense-certainty, even from the perspective of sense-certainty, and that those contradictions interact in a dialectical manner.
The dialectics of sense-certainty
We start with a consciousness of sense-certainty. This is meant to be the most basic and original form of consciousness. It is consciousness described as sensing everything that presents itself, just as it is, and no more.
But consciousness means awareness, i.e. to be conscious is to be conscious of stuff. Any time consciousness describes what it experience, it contradicts what it was meant to be. It was meant to be sense-certainty, which is meant to be the raw experience flowing through awareness. But to be aware means to be aware of something, no matter how generically described. Even calling its experience “this” or “now” means contradicting itself.
This needs to be understood in terms of standards of knowledge. Hegel’s project involves a perspective, the standard of knowledge or truth of that perspective, then testing that standard against its experience. In this case that means: sense-certainty experiences everything presented to it, and it has knowledge by experiencing reality immediately, experiencing reality as it is. Yet as soon as it tries to do so, it contradicts itself. Sense-certainty must mediate reality via universals.
Even if it strives to know things on the basis of “I” – i.e. to know is to experience immediately the flow of experience to myself – it is still forced to mediate that knowledge via universal terms (i.e. to perceive itself as a universal, that is, as a place-holder or category of all those immediate experiences of “I”).
Therefore there is no pure knowledge for sense-certainty. Everything it knows, it knows mediated. Therefore, the standard of truth for sense-certainty is self-contradictory. And (although Taylor doesn’t specifically explain), the dialectics seem to conclude in this way: (a) reality is immediate particulars, (b) yet it appears as universals, (c) therefore reality is immediate universals.
Tangential lessons
Note that the particular disappears into the universal concepts. This is in line with Hegel’s ontology: things are the embodiment of ideas/concepts. Therefore particulars are transient vehicles for concepts. This is in the same way that my existence is an expression of the nature of my “I”, just as reality, including the unfolding of history, is an expression of the nature of the Absolute.
This idea of embodiment is closely tied to that of expression. Hegel (in “Sense-certainty”) moves towards the latter too. He is moving away from an atomic materialism, towards a reality which is based on expression. This can be related to another principle for Hegel, namely that man and nature are a continuum, so that nature is an expression just like man expresses himself.
Hegel’s ultimate goal is to convince us (readers) that the self is an expression of the Geist (the spirit/nature/essence of reality). It will not be enough to change our understanding of what it means to have knowledge. But in showing sense-certainty to be flawed, Hegel has moved part-way towards a knowledge that requires things to be the result of their forces, and thence as subjects that express themselves as objects. This is necessary if the world is to be a subject, i.e. Geist.
Take away lessons and miscellany
- Sense-certainty presumes knowledge to be immediate and particular, yet it only has experiences of mediated universals.
- The method of the dialectic (at least at this point of the Phenomenology) involves testing a given perspective’s standard of knowledge. The contradiction is not found in the perception per se, but in the standard it has for knowing (e.g. knowing that its perception is true).
- Bigger picture: Hegel is biased towards solutions that holds “things” to be expressions of their essence. This relates to his milieu and its interest in expressivism.
- I’m not clear on how “sense-certainty” transforms (via dialectics) into “perception”.
- This relates to another problem I have with the entire “Consciousness” section, namely that I’m not always convinced that the arguments apply to shapes of historical consciousness, as opposed to (say) historical consciousness’ theories – different shapes of epistemology. The idea of “sense-certainty” related to epistemology suits its similarity with philosophical empiricism, that is to say that the experience of “sense-certainty” is the experience that tabula rasa type empiricists believe happens.
This problem of unconvincing dialectics is aptly summarized by the following quote from Taylor (nb he is speaking generally about the Phenomenology).
[Even understanding the mechanics of Hegel’s dialectics] may not make us very much more sanguine about the prospects of Hegel’s ascending dialectics. For it is not enough that we be able to look on something as the realization of an intrinsic goal, that this be one way we could look at things. Such a problematic starting point could yield by dialectical argument a view of things which might convince us by its plausibility, but it would not be a binding argument, it would not command our assent in all rigour. To do the work Hegel wants, this starting point has to be undeniable. And this seems a tall order.But it is one Hegel undertakes to fulfil. [I]t is just the difficulty of sustaining this claim which undermines the whole system. Where his arguments do not work it is usually because they turn on a putative intrinsic purpose or standard which is not irrefutably established [p134-5, Ch.4]
