I. THE GROUNDING OF THE ENACTMENT OF THE PRESENTATION OF APPEARING KNOWLEDGE (PARAGRAPHS 1–4 OF THE “INTRODUCTION”)
Philosophy, i.e., metaphysics, deals with the cognition of what truly is, or with what beings truly are. For the metaphysics of German idealism, what truly is a being [wahrhaft Seiende] is the absolute. If in this metaphysics the absolute is to be cognized, this undertaking stands in the shadow of the philosophy of Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason has the intention of creating clarity about the essence of the speculative cognition of the absolute by means of a well-grounded drawing of boundaries. The self-assurance of the procedure and of every attitude is a basic trait of modern philosophy in general. The act of carrying out an examining consideration about cognition itself prior to the cognition of the absolute is consistent with a “natural assumption” of this age.
Since Hegel wants to “introduce,” he has to draw on a “natural assumption.” Such instances where Hegel “draws on” a natural assumption can therefore be found throughout the entire “Introduction” to such an extent that Hegel begins every new step of the “Introduction” by “drawing on” a natural assumption. He does this in order to show to what extent the established views appear to be right but in fact are not. To speak more plainly and to use Hegel’s language: What the established views mean by a prior examination of cognition before cognition means in fact something else.
Thus, Hegel by no means denies that the consummate cognition of the absolute has to be preceded by an “examination” of cognition. However, the type of this examination and the essence of the cognition of the absolute that is subjected to this examination can be determined only, if it can be determined at all, from the absolute itself.
If we begin the examination of cognition and of its faculty in the usual manner, we thereby already possess a concept of cognition. The latter serves as a “tool” with which we tackle the object that is to be cognized. But in order to be able to decide on the suitability or unsuitability of this tool we must already have cognized the object that is to be cognized. The cognizing relationship to the absolute is already presupposed. The same holds true if cognition is taken not as a “tool” but as a “medium” through which the light of truth reaches us. “Tool” and “medium” both have the character of a means. If, however, we take the cognition of the absolute as a means, then we misrecognize the essence and the sense of absolute cognition and of the absolute. For it is the essence of the absolute to include in itself everything that is relative and every relation to what is relative and thus also every relation of the relative to the absolute; because otherwise it would not be the absolute. The absolute can, therefore, never be something that we could first bring closer to ourselves through any kind of “tool,” as if the absolute could at first not be with us. The absolute as absolute is “both in and for itself already with us,” yes indeed, “it wants to be with us” (WW II, 60 [§73]).1,[10] By the same token, cognition is not a medium between us and the absolute, namely in such a way that cognition would amount to the refraction of the ray of cognition by the medium. Cognition is rather “the ray itself through which the truth touches us” (ibid. [§73]).
Almost in passing and hidden away in subordinate clauses, Hegel introduces in the first paragraph of the “Introduction” the idea that supports his metaphysics: The absolute is already with us and wants to be with us. Cognition is the ray of the absolute that touches us, not an undertaking that we carry out “afterward” in the direction of the absolute. We should know from the genuine recollection in the history of metaphysics that the latter, since the time of Plato and Aristotle, thinks beings only as beings by thinking at the same time the highest being (τιμιώτατον ὄν = τὸ θεῖον), and this as the ground and the originary cause [Ur-sache] (ἀϱχή—αἴτιον) of all beings and thus of being. By thinking beings as beings (ὂν ᾗ ὄν), metaphysics is ontological. By thinking beings as beings from the highest being, metaphysics is theological. Metaphysics is in its essence ontotheological. This holds true not only for Plato’s metaphysics and the metaphysics of Aristotle, let alone only for Christian metaphysics. Modern metaphysics is from Descartes to Nietzsche also ontotheology. The grounding and the evidence of the principle of self-certainty of the ego cogito has its foundation in the idea innata substantiae infinitae, i.e., Dei. Each monad sees the universe from a particular perspective and thus the divine central monad. According to Kant, all human reason, as the basic relation of man’s essence to beings, is determined by the postulates of practical reason in which the existence of the highest good is posited as the unconditioned. And even being as the “will to power” is, according to Nietzsche, possible only on the basis of the unconditioned, which he can express only as “the eternal recurrence of the same.”
Insofar as Hegel says: The absolute is already with us, and: cognition is the ray of the absolute that touches us, he says the same thing. At the same time, however, he says the same thing differently—namely, from a final unconditionedness that he posits as the first principle. We must finally comprehend this explicit and first cognizant positing of the first presupposition of all ontotheologically determined metaphysics for what it is. It is the highest resoluteness of the critical (transcendental) mindfulness concerning oneself that started with Descartes and that Kant first brought into the domain of metaphysics. It is the opposite of boundless speculation that leaves behind the boundary-posts of the critique. The knowledge of the essence of absolute knowledge knows itself already as absolute knowledge. It is knowledge in its essentiality, “the” science pure and simple, which alone can and must know its own essence. It is “the doctrine of science.” This is according to Fichte the German and modern name for absolute metaphysics. This metaphysics is not a decline from the “critique,” but it comprehends “critique” itself in its unconditionedness. It bears in mind that the highest thoughtfulness with respect to the cognition of the absolute consists in taking seriously in advance that which is cognized here. If, however, “the science” expresses itself thoughtlessly about the absolute and the cognition of the absolute, it simply comes on the scene in the midst of everyday opinion and among the appearing facts as one among others. But the mere coming on the scene and the pushing itself to the front is not a demonstration. Accordingly, Hegel says near the end of the first part of the “Introduction” (paragraph 4): “But science, just because it comes on the scene, is itself an appearance: in coming on the scene it is not yet science in its developed and unfolded truth” (WW II, 62 [§76]).
A mere coming on the scene would be contrary to the essence of absolute knowledge. If it appears at all, this appearance has to present itself in such a way that in this presentation the absolute brings its own appearing essence absolutely to appearance. But to appear absolutely means: to show the full essence completely in this appearance, namely in such a way that in this appearance above all the space and the ether, i.e., the “element” of appearance, also and simultaneously comes to appearance. However, the element in which absolute spirit shows itself as absolute knowledge is “consciousness.” It is appearing knowledge in its appearance.
The presentation of appearing knowledge is necessary in order to carry the coming on the scene of “the science,” i.e., of the systematic cognition of the absolute, beyond the mere coming on the scene in an undetermined element, and thus to allow the appearance of the absolute to be according to its essence, i.e., to be absolute.
The cognition of the absolute is now neither a tool nor a medium that lies outside of the absolute and that is separated from it; as consciousness, the cognition of the absolute is the element of its appearance that is grounded in the absolute itself and that is unfolded by the absolute, and it is this appearance in its various shapes. The cognition of the absolute is not a “means” but the course[11] of the appearing absolute itself through its different stages of appearance to itself. This amounts neither to a critique of the faculty of cognition nor to a contingent description of modes of cognition, but it is the self-presentation of the absolute itself in the element of its appearance that thereby opens up for the first time.
The absolute never is and never appears by merely coming on the scene among other things and somewhere, and that means relative to something that it is not itself. The absolute appears essentially only absolutely, i.e., in absolving[12] the totality of its stages of appearance; through this absolving it accomplishes the absolution, the release [Lossprechung] from the mere semblance of merely coming on the scene. This liberating accomplishment (“absolving”) of its appearance may be called the absolvence of the absolute. The absolute “is” only in the mode of absolvence. The cognition of the absolute is never a means that tackles the absolute, i.e., it is never something relative, but it is—when it is—rather itself absolute, i.e., absolvent, i.e., it is a course and a path of the absolute to itself.
Therefore, in the following parts we will repeatedly speak of a “path” and we will characterize the self-presentation of the appearing spirit as a course.
1. Note from the German editor: The quotations from the Phenomenology of Spirit are from hereafter cited according to the complete edition of Hegel’s works (cf. above p.51, footnote 1 and 2) in abbreviated form after the quoted passage from the text.