In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, consciousness evolves into “Reason” – a mode of thought that considers everything that is, including itself, to be determined by rationality.<\/p>\n
This concerns the introductory material of C.AA.V “The certainty and truth of reason”,\u00a0\u00a7231-243.<\/small><\/p>\nThe unchanging certainty of reason<\/h3>\n
Before this point, the ascent of consciousness had progressed into self-consciousness, passing through its stages of the lord\/bondsman<\/a>,\u00a0stoicism, skepticism,<\/a> and then unhappy consciousness<\/a>. The last of those steps involved an individual\u00a0for whom reality (qua totality of its own experiences) is a dichotomy of its own transient and ever-changing being, and an essential unchanging being. This individual consciousness sought to relate its changing self to that unchanging essence, yearning for it, and devoting itself to it (incl. by acts of religious worship and practise).<\/p>\n But\u00a0in this object, in which it finds that its own action and being,\u00a0as being that of this particular consciousness, are being and\u00a0action in themselves, there has arisen for consciousness the idea\u00a0of Reason, of the certainty that, in its particular individuality,\u00a0it has being absolutely in itself, or is all reality.\u00a0[231]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That source of lawfulness – the unchanging principle from that which\u00a0I am can be determined, and in relation to which, my being and actions can be given measure – exists within myself. At the stage of unhappy consciousness, I had separated them because I perceived that I was all thought but I couldn’t square the fact that I was the mutable thoughts with the thought of an essence within me. But now I can see that this “object” of my person, contains both my expressions of will as “actions”, but also the axioms of which my will is an expression (i.e. my “being”). There is some sort of schema or law that determines the relation of my\u00a0action\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0being<\/em>, and that is a rational relation; everything is determined by Reason.<\/p>\n Reason is the certainty of consciousness that it is all\u00a0reality[.] [233]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Just as I am an expression of Reason, so too is the world, and in that sense the world from my rational perspective is entirely determined without anything being added from without. I am “all reality” because my experiences are coherent with my rational being. Or, to use an analogy: I am run by a software called Reason that translates my essence (or\u00a0being<\/em>) into action; my consciousness is made up of thoughts that include thoughts of myself and of changing perceptions, but those perception and the behaviour of whatever is perceived is also run by the Reason software; I am run by a software called Reason, which is the code determining the contents of my perception, whether that be the behaviour of myself, or the behaviour of things.<\/p>\n In order that this phenomenology not appear absurd, we (the readers) can peek forward to the next subsection, wherein the activities of a scientific worldview are described. Science is a philosophy which presumes that there is a single principle underlying everything, including humanity, and that principle is a rational one.<\/p>\n The self-certainty of reason means that I perceive the world as taking the form of my reason. This is the categories of the world. For Aristotle a category was just the form of an object. But for me, now, categories are the form that reality takes in accordance with reason, and so it follows that category is also based on the idea that self-consciousness and being (of things) have the same essence.<\/p>\n Consciousness, however, as essence\u00a0is this whole process itself, of passing out of itself as simple category\u00a0into a singular individual, into the object, and of contemplating\u00a0this process in the object, nullifying the object as\u00a0distinct (from it), appropriating it as its own, and proclaiming\u00a0itself as this certainty of being all reality, of being both itself\u00a0and its object. [237]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This means that to be conscious is to experience the process of perceiving myself as a determination of reason, and perceiving the object as it is (due to reason), and perceiving the reason that underlies this object – thus returning back to myself, as the origin of the reason.<\/p>\n One way of looking at this is the thought experiment of the tinted glasses. This thought experiment has a man for whom the entire world appears red, and he believes that this is because everything is<\/em> in fact red, not realizing that the redness derives from the colour of his tinted glasses.\u00a0This is analogous to what Hegel is describing, except\u00a0that in Hegel there is no difference between myself (i.e. the wearer) and the glasses. The glasses are like reason, in that they determine the tint\u00a0of everything, and they are also like reason in that I can become witness to the glasses by reflecting on it – i.e. the\u00a0thought\u00a0that the tint of everything is (effectively) a reflection (or demonstration) of the glasses.<\/p>\n The rest concerns the introductory material of C.AA.V.A “Observing Reason”, \u00a7240-243<\/small><\/p>\n The next step for this level of consciousness is to find confirmation of this truth; I want to find in my experiences signs of the reason that underlies the contents of those experiences. The first effort in this direction is (taken in the next subsection of the text) by a sort of empirical scientist who seeks to discover the lawfulness of things.<\/p>\n Reason sets to work\u00a0to know<\/em> the truth, to find in the form of a Notion that which,\u00a0for ‘meaning’ and ‘perceiving’ , is a Thing; i.e. it seeks to possess\u00a0in thinghood the consciousness only of itself. Reason now has, therefore<\/em>, a universal interest in the world, because it is certain\u00a0of its presence in the world, or that the world present to it is\u00a0rational. It seeks its ‘other’, knowing that therein it possesses\u00a0nothing else but itself: it seeks only its own infinitude. [240]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Hegel sometimes slips between phenomenology and psychology, as when he explains that although men may say that they research the world in order to understand it, they actually are desiring to find themselves within the world. And Hegel (arguably) “proves”\u00a0this\u00a0by pointing out that in exploring the sensuous world, men analyse it in their own terms: as concepts.<\/p>\n In any case, I want to experience the truth of my own mode of experience (i.e. Reason). This I can do by discovering things that prove their dependence on my consciousness. When I achieve this I will have demonstrated my “own infinitude”, that is, that there is no limit to what can exist in the substrate of my rational thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, consciousness evolves into “Reason” – a mode of thought that considers everything that is, including itself, to be determined by rationality. This concerns the introductory material of C.AA.V “The certainty and truth of reason”,\u00a0\u00a7231-243. The unchanging certainty of reason Before this point, the ascent of consciousness had progressed into self-consciousness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,90,302,18,39,20],"tags":[19],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-blog-posts","category-classicalphilosophers","category-hegel","category-meanwhileiii","category-philosophy","tag-phenomenology-of-spirit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3631,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/22\/hegel-index\/","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":0},"title":"Hegel Index","author":"Pala","date":"October 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is an index for all my posts on Hegel. The order of publication is indicated by the numbering and otherwise this order basically follows the Phenomenology of Spirit. Contextualizing Hegel's Philosophy\u00a0[4] Reading Hegel on \"Sense Certainty\"\u00a0[1] Taylor Reading Hegel on \"Sense Certainty\"\u00a0[5] Reading Hegel on \"Desire\"\u00a0[2] Reading Hegel on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":293,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/29\/reading-hegel-on-lust\/","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":1},"title":"Reading Hegel on “Lust”","author":"Pala","date":"October 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This post was found in 'Draft' mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 29\/10\/2014 This is an element in the chapter \"Reason\", which I have already explored as a whole, but within which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39953,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/11\/15\/hegel-on-spirit-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":2},"title":"Hegel on “Spirit”","author":"Pala","date":"November 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This post was found in 'Draft' mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 15\/11\/2014 I have been reading Charles Taylor's book \"Hegel\" and his discussion on\u00a0the Phenomenology of Spirit on \"Spirit\". What follows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":105,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/25\/taylor-reading-hegel-on-sense-certainty\/","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":3},"title":"Taylor Reading Hegel on “Sense-Certainty”","author":"Pala","date":"September 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Charles Taylor's reading of Hegel on \"sense-certainty\" is informed by his understanding of the intellectual ecosystem from which Hegel's philosophy grew, esp. the German Romantics. It can be simplified as a desire to provide an intellectual basis for human expression, and for a unity between man and nature. These ideas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":184,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/24\/hegel-on-reason\/","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":4},"title":"Hegel on “Reason”","author":"Pala","date":"October 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A summary of Phenomenology of Spirit (by Hegel) on Reason. This chapter describes the ongoing evolution of a consciousness that knows that it itself and its experiences are both explicable by, and manifestations of, reason. This has existential and practical implications, and leads consciousness to prove its assumptions: testing science,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4019,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/08\/reading-hegel-on-sense-certainty\/","url_meta":{"origin":182,"position":5},"title":"Reading Hegel on “Sense-Certainty”","author":"Pala","date":"September 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In September 2014, Shai publishes his fifth\u00a0blog\u00a0entitled \u201cM-III\u201d (short for Meantime-III) and subtitled \u201cThe Traveller is the Journey\u201d (not to be confused with a later blog entitled \u201cThe Traveller is the Journey\u201d, published in 2015). In the 'About' page of the blog, Shai shares his observations on his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-2W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Confirming the truth of reason<\/h3>\n
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The motivation of observing reason<\/h3>\n
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