II. THE SELF-PRESENTATION OF APPEARING KNOWLEDGE AS THE COURSE INTO THE TRUTH OF ITS OWN ESSENCE (PARAGRAPHS 5–8 OF THE “INTRODUCTION”)

If we understand cognition in the manner of everyday representation as a course, and if we hear about the course of consciousness to its essential truth, i.e., to spirit, then we can indeed conceive all this “from the standpoint” of natural consciousness as a “path of the soul” to absolute spirit. The course is, then, an Itinerarium mentis in Deum (Bonaventura). Indeed, all attempts that have been undertaken so far to interpret Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit have conceived of it in the sense of such a course that “natural consciousness” passes through. However, Hegel explicitly says (paragraph 5 [§77]) that one “can” conceive of the Phenomenology of Spirit from the standpoint of natural, i.e., non-philosophical consciousness in this manner. This means, however, precisely that this conception is philosophically untrue. For we are not dealing with a path that lies before natural consciousness and that it wanders on as wayfarer in the direction of the absolute. The course that Hegel has in mind is rather the course that the absolute itself goes, namely in such a way that in this course the absolute wends its way to its goal: the truth of its complete appearance. In this process, natural consciousness shows itself as a knowledge that has not yet actualized in itself the truth of knowing and therefore has to give up its obstinacy. But here everyday opinion again pushes itself to the front and grasps this path of consciousness to its truth and certainty in the manner of Descartes as a path of doubt. At most, however, the path of doubt, once it has passed through that which can be doubted, aims at obtaining and securing the matter again in the same way that it was before the occurrence of the doubt. The path of doubt becomes simply set on the certainty that the doubt, as the belief in itself and in its right, already presupposes. But the course of appearing knowledge to its essential truth is a course on which the first step already thinks toward the essence of consciousness, yet in doing this it must recognize that the essence that it grasps first, taken by itself, offers no hope of bringing the absolute in its truth, i.e., as absolvent and absolved, to appearance. The first step on the course of the absolute, which brings itself to appearance, demands another, to which, in turn, the same applies; and this continues as long as the totality of the essential shapes of consciousness has not yet been absolved; it is in this absolving alone that it is absolute. The course of appearing knowledge is thus from one step to the next rather a “path of despair” (paragraph 6, WW II, 63 [§78]). Even though the previous stages have to be given up, they must at the same time be preserved if the absolving is to be not a loss but the unique form of the attainment of the absolute. “The path of despair,” however, would only be a path into what is without prospect on which nothing ever appears again. By constantly absolving and giving up these previous stages we thus necessarily go into these stages so that the current essential shape of consciousness can be taken up; for these shapes can be preserved in this progression only to the extent that they have been taken up. The course of appearing knowledge is a sublation of its essential shapes that come to appearance. This “sublation” is threefold: The shapes of consciousness that have been traversed not only are each taken up in the sense of a tollere (to pick up from the ground), they are at the same time preserved [aufgehoben] in the sense of conservare (to preserve). This preservation is a transmission in which consciousness gives itself over to those of its shapes that it has traversed, namely by picking them up and by preserving them in the essential succession of their appearance, whereby it “sublates” them in a double sense. Consciousness, presenting itself, thus realizes its appearance in a history, a history that serves the formation of its essence, namely in such a manner that in this formation consciousness knows itself in the completeness of its appearance. “The series of shapes that consciousness traverses on this path is rather the detailed history of the formation of consciousness to the standpoint of science” (paragraph 6, WW II, 64 middle [§78]).

Everyday opinion now again pushes itself to the front with a question. If the self-presentation of appearing knowledge is a course in the sense of the history of formation of the shapes of consciousness that we have characterized, from where does this course take the principle of the completeness of the shapes and from where does it take its goal at all and thus the rule of the succession of steps of the progression? Hegel responds to these questions in paragraphs 7 and 8. However, the answer to these questions that non-philosophical opinion poses can consist only in that the questions themselves are to be “posed correctly,” as it is the case everywhere in this “Introduction.” This happens in the form of the suggestion that these questions of ordinary opinion do not ask with a view to that which alone is in question: the absolute and the cognition of the absolute.

The course is the course of appearing knowledge to its essence that is with it itself. The goal of this course lies neither outside the course nor at its end. The goal is the beginning from which the course begins and takes each of its steps. The shapes of consciousness do not follow each other in such a way that the final shape appears last, but the first shape as such is rather already a shape of the absolute; it is in advance raised up [hinaufgehoben] (elevare) into the absoluteness of the absolute. Put differently: The absolute determines what appears as the first stage of the appearance of the essence of the absolute. If the Phenomenology of Spirit “begins” with sense certainty and “ends” with absolute spirit, as is outwardly indicated by the table of contents of the work, then this beginning in sense certainty is not posited out of consideration for the human being who at first lingers in this mode of knowing. The Phenomenology of Spirit rather begins with the appearance of the essence of sense certainty because this shape of knowledge is the outermost externalization into which the absolute is able to release itself. If, however, it releases itself into this shape, then as far as the shapes of its essence are concerned it is with the emptiest and poorest shape, and is thus the farthest away from its own completeness. This essential distancing from itself is the basic condition for the absolute to give itself the possibility—out of itself and for itself—of traversing a course that is the return to itself. If the course of absolute knowledge to itself, as the passage through the essential shapes of its appearance, has the basic trait of sublation, then this sublation is according to its proper and underlying essence before all an elevation—a being-raised up into the absolute. Let us not forget what seem to be only passing remarks in the first paragraph: The absolute is already with us, i.e., it is already in the most primitive shape of consciousness, and our cognition is the ray that touches us as the absolute truth.

In paragraph 8, which characterizes the goal of the course of consciousness, Hegel says: “Consciousness, however, is for itself its own concept” (WW II, 66 [§80]). Consciousness is according to its essence self-consciousness. However, self-consciousness is its essence, i.e., it is for itself what it is, only to the extent that it knows itself as self-consciousness in the completeness of its essence. According to Hegel, this self-knowing knowledge of itself is “the concept.”

Since consciousness only is by being its concept, it is—insofar as it is this constant bringing-itself-before-itself—in its essential shapes a constant being-wrested beyond itself by itself to itself. “Thus consciousness suffers this violence of spoiling its own limited satisfaction {i.e., having to transcend each of its stages in despair} at its own hands” (ibid. [§80]).

As this being-wrested into the domain of truth of its own essence, consciousness itself comes “out” as that which it is in its appearance. It presents itself. It is presentation and “is” as such. The course of the self-presentation of consciousness into the interrelated stages of its shapes has the basic trait of sublation in the threefold sense of taking up (tollere), preserving (conservare), and raising up (elevare) that we have characterized. The third of these modes of sublation, the raising up into the consummate essence of consciousness (i.e., into its truth and “actuality”) is the first and underlying one in the whole of the sublation according to the matter [Sache] and to the “essence.” Consciousness essentially occurs as self-consciousness in advance in the elevation to the absolute. And it takes up its object-of-consciousness always only out of the elevation, so that within this elevation it can preserve the consciousness of what it is conscious of as a shape.

From another point of view one characterizes the mere taking up and ascertaining of the object-of-consciousness as thesis; the taking back of that which is thus posited for consciousness as an object-of-consciousness into self-consciousness as antithesis; and the taking together of the two into the higher unity as synthesis. If one thinks in the order of succession of everyday opinion, the course of consciousness comes from the thesis, goes over to the antithesis, and goes up to the synthesis. Given this progression, one now asks Hegel how a guiding thread for the progression from the thesis to the antithesis and from both of these to the synthesis can be discerned at all. In the everyday representation of this course one does indeed not find a guiding thread for this progression—and rightfully so. One thus develops some misgivings and reaches the objection and reproach against Hegel that he stages, indeed that he even has to stage the progression as a triad out of pure arbitrariness. For if at first only the thesis is posited, any indication of the direction and the domain from which the antithesis is to be taken is still missing. And when the latter is posited, it still remains questionable in what respect the contraposition is to be comprehended as a composition and a unity.

Yet this critique of Hegel’s thinking, which is often enough brought up also from the “philosophical” camp, does not think philosophically at all. It completely overlooks the fact that the synthesis is what supports and guides, and that the domain of that which deserves the conservare and that therefore demands a tollere is already circumscribed by the violence of the elevation that prevails before everything else. In order to be able to bring the course of consciousness in its appearance to presentation, the thinking that presents it must before all think the synthesis, and only from out of the synthesis it must think the thesis and the antithesis. Yet insofar as this synthesis is absolute, it is not “made” by us; we only carry it out. The synthesis and the absolute elevation is already as that which Hegel mentions in the first paragraph of the “Introduction” when he says these two things: The absolute is already with us; cognition is the ray by which the truth (the absolute) itself touches us. If one disregards this by misrecognizing “the (absolute) violence” (WW II, 60 [§73]^[13] that already prevails in the essence of consciousness, then every attempt to follow the course of consciousness in thought and to know the inner law of the progression of the course is futile.

Conversely, the following holds true as well: If we think in advance from the primordial elevation and synthesis of consciousness, then the ground for determining the type of progression and thus the totality of the shapes that are to be traversed is already given. Until consciousness knows itself unconditionally and in its truth, and thus is its own self in and for itself, the violence of its absolute essence coerces consciousness to progress. Every shape of the progression and the transition from one to the next is now determined by the goal of the course: They are the shapes and stages of self-consciousness that determine themselves with regard to absolute self-consciousness. The negation of the previous shape that is carried out in the progression is not an empty negating. Viewed from the sublated stage, the latter is not just put aside and given up; nor does the negation, when viewed from the perspective of the progression, go into an empty indeterminacy. The negation that takes place in the progression, and thus its essence, is “determinate negation.” Hegel discusses this in paragraph 7 of the “Introduction.”

Since the course is supported and guided by the elevation, the progression is a gradual ascent to ever higher stages. And since this ascending progression is in itself a differentiating transition from one stage to another, it becomes manifest that the course of the self-presentation of appearing knowledge that separates and differentiates the lower from the higher has the character of an examination.

Examination—in the age of Kant this sounds like an “epistemological” consideration of cognition, which for this purpose is isolated for itself like a “means.” More importantly, common thought at once asks the question as to where the criterion [Maßstab] of this “examination” is taken from. By engaging, again, with what ordinary opinion thinks about measure-taking [Maß-nehmen] and about examinations, in the next part of the “Introduction” Hegel explains essential moments of the course of the self-presentation of appearing knowledge.