V. ABSOLUTE METAPHYSICS (SKETCHES FOR PARAGRAPH 16 OF THE “INTRODUCTION”)
1. Essential considerations. Objectness and “science”
The Phenomenology of Spirit is the conceptual history of the appearing absolute, the history of spirit “from { . . . } its conceptual organization” (cf. the final sentence of the work)—i.e., its systematics—the system. This standing-together in a single consciousness that is unconditioned self-consciousness and that consists in this standing-together for itself.
The “forms” of the system are not compartments that are forced onto consciousness (“empty organization”—that does not exist), but these forms are themselves the concealed essential shapes of consciousness, i.e., its objectness for it itself (the new true object).
And in this objectness it is precisely not the form of consciousness that comes out but consciousness itself in its innermost essence as “form”—as “I think.”
The form of the organization and negativity. The negation of negation.
The decision lies deeply concealed here: that “consciousness” and object and objectness at all occur essentially in the primacy of the absolute.
Truth as certainty. Being as idea and category. Being as objectness and “idea.”—Being and thinking.
“The sense certainty itself” “is” “only this history of its experience.”
Its truth, i.e., its certainty, i.e., the self-certainty of consciousness that is commensurate with it, consists in the “movement” (μεταβολή) of the letting-arise of the new true object (“Introduction,” paragraph 14 [§87]).
(“Movement” is here re-presentingly representing, i.e., a representing change-over (ἐϰ—εἰς) of representation as a placing-toward-oneself.—“Movement” not “change in location.”)
Object 1. the new object, 2. the true object.
Experience—not with “another” object but with the same, namely in such a way that in the experience this object turns out to be another.
The truth of sense certainty as the truth of immediate knowing is mediation.
The objectness of the new true object is mediatedness (negation of the negation).
The objectness (unconditionally transcendental) is “negativity.” What is the relation between “negativity” itself and the objectness that was first determined by Kant:
Objectness and certainty. Certainty and “science.” “Science” and its justification: as the letting-appear of its concept. Science and the system.
3. The ray of the absolute. At a glance 2
The “system” and the “object”—(the “obtaining-together”), “Transcendental Deduction” §16.
The “Phenomenology of Spirit” and the Logic (cf. Logic 1812, p.X [28]).1
“Introduction”—Examination of cognition.—Cognition as “tool and means.”—Cognition as “path,” as course, as “movement.”
Now explicitly: Cognition as the “movement of experience.” The latter, however, is as certainty—itself the “truth” of the absolute. The path is the truth itself—the appearing true thing in its appearance [Erscheinen] and manifestation [Scheinen]. This manifestation is the radiating of the absolute itself. The ray that touches “us”—us who inquire in a transcendental unconditioned manner, i.e., the ones who look-on—in the “contribution” [Zu-tat] of the view toward the new true object.
The “deed” is only the enactment of what has already happened.
4. The phenomenology of spirit
Hegel—Descartes (objectness and truth in their unity).
Cf. Phenomenology, “Introduction,” final paragraph and the Logic 1812, “Introduction,” p.Xf. [28].2 Here Hegel says: “In the Phenomenology of Spirit {note the shortened title} (Bamberg and Würzburg 1807) I have presented consciousness as it progresses from the first immediate opposition of itself and the object to absolute knowledge. This path runs through all the forms of the relation of consciousness to the object and its result is the concept of science. This concept, therefore, requires no justification here (apart from the fact that it emerges within logic itself), because it has already received one in said place; and it is not capable of any other justification other than its production by consciousness, all of whose shapes dissolve into the same {the concept} as into their truth.”
Here it becomes clear that in the transcendental transformation, despite all that is left over of the shapes of spirit, indeed as a result of it, Descartes’s inquiry is with all the more reason and properly consummated. “Science” = the knowledge of absolute knowledge: the unconditioned certainty as actuality itself. This actuality, however, is the objectness of unconditioned thinking (I think).
The clarification of the concept “movement” important
1. from μεταβολή
2. with regard to re-presentation, looking on-contribution, reversal [Um-kehrung]
3. with the inclusion of sub-lation
4. with regard to cognition as “path,” spirit—course
5. as determination of “becoming”
6. The by-play [Bei-her-spielen]
Singularization in the essence of intuition: single things represented immediately, (a) from the object, (b) out of the mode of releasing.
The particularization essentially in all consciousness—out of the “reflection” and the appearance.
Kant’s supreme principle of all synthetic judgments and Hegel’s formula from the preface to the Philosophy of Right each say in their own manner that being is actuality—objectness, that truth is—certainty.[34]
“The examination”—of experience—the unconditioned transcendental reversal.
Hegel does not deny the precedence of an examination of absolute cognition before the consummate absolute cognition of the absolute. But its essence is of a different type, namely the letting-oneself-be-touched by the ray—to follow the ray.
Thus conversely: To pursue the ray while being hit and guided by it. The reversal.
8. The onto-theological character
Wherein the onto-theological character of metaphysics is grounded (the ray). Like a descent from the τὸ γὰϱ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε ϰαὶ εἶναι.[35]
* * *
The absolute metaphysics of German Idealism not a hasty transcending of limits but the seriousness of taking seriously what has been assigned. Not hasty but the highest thoughtfulness that above all and decisively keeps thought in all that exists here (the unconditioned).
Beyng-historical thinking, from which alone the essence of metaphysics lights up, is thoughtful in yet a completely different manner.
The thinker (man) is touched by the ray, and out of this touch and only in accordance with it he can think the absolute.
The thinker thinks from himself toward the absolute, and his cognition presents itself in that shape.
But this cognition is conversely the radiating of truth upon the thinker.
Thus, in order to cognize truthfully he must follow this radiating.
Thus, he must carry out a reversal—; and to what extent does he thus conform to what the absolute itself must demand in order to show itself in its course?
10. The Germans and metaphysics
For the Germans the historical moment may come in which they would have to become attentive to that which awaits them as their own. That which is their own can only be appropriated in the essential confrontation that lets the essential become question-worthy. To this day, the German relation to the metaphysics of German Idealism remains entangled in an either-or whose historical grounds can be passed over here. Either blind rejection = rejection without understanding of absolute metaphysics or an equally blind parroting, and that in the bad form of its adaptation to the requirements of the times.
Getting bogged down in this either-or contains the danger of a ruinous downfall.
The absolute is not pulled into cognition in toil and pain. Cf. Schelling VII, 135.3
Not to give anything but to take away what is contingent [Zu-fällige]. The remainder—the essence of man himself.
What is this essence? And from where and how is it to be determined? How is man and is he ever in his essence or even just on the way to it? From where and which characteristics?
12. Reflection—counter push—reversal
The “reversal of consciousness” our contribution through which the series of appearances is reversed.
The series is not for the consciousness that we are considering but “for us.”
But who we? Those who think philosophically. Philosophy—nothing outside of us and nothing that comes on the scene.
The reversal of the series of appearances (“the entire series of the essential shapes of consciousness”[36]); these experiences are not “made”[37] by us but taken up—but in the reversal.
But this reversal as well demanded by experience as transcendental, i.e., necessary from the essence of reflection.
Only this necessary reversal—its necessity itself is the “for us.”
But properly speaking not purely “through” us.
The philosopher does not first give himself a relation to the absolute but forgets himself in this relation that already is. The self-forgetting, however, his contribution—and not nothing.
Self-forgetting, i.e., the letting-prevail of the ray. Being radiated upon, to be a ray,—this ray, however, the lighting up that shows itself.
To go alongside this ray toward oneself, the thinker. Thus, to be outside oneself and to come to and to bring to oneself.
Outside oneself—in the projection. To project what? That which appears—“object.” How, in terms of what? Its objectness.
To exhibit the what—to add the how. But the how only in the mode of and following its appearance.
14. Experiences as transcendental experiences
The possibility and necessity of the experiences of consciousness lie in the latter itself as “reflection” in which the absolute wills to reveal itself in its truth. This will its—actuality.
This “reflection” is the casting back of its own light into itself and thus the showing-itself—the radiating. The ray is reflection.
Our cognition—a “reversal” that is demanded by the “reflection” itself.
The “experience” is movement, is the becoming conscious of the essence of the experiencing spirit, is philosophy itself as the history of the experience of the essence of the absolute.
This experience is the objectness of the standing-against of spirit, the having-appeared of appearance itself.
The voluntary of the will—the actuality of what is true.[38]
“Consciousness itself” is “comprehended” in this experience and is “the content.” That which is experienced is for it.
Which unconditioned knowledge (presentation) does the experience of consciousness thereby demand for itself—the experience of consciousness.
15. The metaphysics of Schelling and Hegel
The metaphysics of Schelling and Hegel as the return to Leibniz, shaped {?} and essentially clarified by Kant’s transcendental philosophy, namely in such a way that Leibniz’s metaphysics is now understood metaphysically in the transcendental-ontic sense.
16. “Phenomenology” and absoluteness
Conclusion: cf. paragraph 13.
Question: What does the disappearance of the Phenomenology of Spirit from the determinative role in the system signify?
If the system is the absolute itself,—the absolute in that form not yet in its consummate completion! This absoluteness, however, becomes decisive because the forgetting of being has become consummate in absolute certainty! Everything achieved, i.e., nothing anymore.
Relation [Bezug] to “man.” In what sense? (Cf. with respect to Schelling, anthropomorphism). The absolute essence of the relation [Relation].
Man and being.
1. Consciousness, therefore
2. The transcendental—being as objectness, the old untrue object—actuality as idea.
3. Truth as certainty.
4. Man as subject—self-consciousness.
5. The being that is most in being—the absolute; subjectivity as unconditioned subject-object.
6. The system and the organization of history.
Absolute metaphysics and technology.
7. The new true object, i.e., beingness as consciousness-of-beings [Bewußtseiendheit] is the object of representation.
Placing-before-oneself [Vor-sich-stellen]—knowing will—being as will. The absolute wills to be with us.
8. Negativity and the truth of beings as being.
Absolute metaphysics, unconditioned speculation and “experience.”
Experience (cf. Encyclopedia §7/8) the principle of modernity. The being-alongside of man; not just “also” alongside but the essential instance of the demonstration—before the insight—evidence. Cf. §37ff. “Empiricism.”
Subjectivity. Absolute metaphysics as modern metaphysics. Experience not “positivism” and blind sensibility and “fact” but in the essential sense of certainty.
Man—anthropomorphism cf. Schelling.
Man and “beings.”
1. For this edition cf. above p.51, footnote 4.—In Georg Lasson’s edition (Leipzig, 1923) volume I, 29.
2. Ibid. [Science of Logic, 28.]
3. F. W. J. Schelling, Sämmtliche Werke, ed. K. F. A. Schelling (Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1856–61). [Heidegger is referring to a passage from the “Vorrede” to the Jahrbücher der Medicin als Wissenschaft, which Schelling edited from 1806 to 1808 together with A. F. Marcus.]