The Truth of Perception: Encyclopedia par. 422

The Encyclopedic version of the Phenomenology can be used as a guide line for the interpretation of the separate Phenomenology – of course only with regard to the chapters on Consciousness, Self-consciousness and Reason because Spirit, Religion and Absolute knowledge are missing in the Encyclopedia. Elsewhere I have tried to answer the question why this is so.

When reading the chapter on Force and the Understanding, it can be useful to read the corresponding section in the Encyclopedia: par. 422 – 424. It gives the logical structure of the transition and not the dialectical development – which is in conformity with the character of the Encyclopedia.

In par 422 Hegel calls it the “near truth of perception” that the object of consciousness is ‘appearance’ of something that in itself is universal. This universal is, as we know from the separate Phenomenology the unconditioned universal that no longer refers to the multitude of sense-certainties. When we take the object as the outward manifestation of a thought – a thought that contains the determinacy of the thing perceived – we understand that thing to be an appearance.

Appearances are not perceived, consciousness therefore has moved away from that mode of cognition. It is no longer perception but ‘reason’ . (That is finite reason: Verstand and not infinite reason: Vernunft.)

This universal thought that is thee inner being of the appearances, is described by Hegel with two separate ideas.

First, it is abstract identity. It is whatever sense-certainty and perception actually sense and perceive, it is that very same content. The universal thought here is just everything that ‘goes on’ in whatever we perceive: the contradictions, the logical forms, the movement from the One to the Many e.g. all of that taken together. Hegel speaks about the “sublated manifold of the sensuous” that is posited and negated at the same time. The summary of all of the experience of consciousness in sense-certainty and perception is simply that this (individual) is a ‘what’ it is (universal). Every thing that I perceive becomes an expression of the thought that I have of it too. And that thought is also the condition of me perceiving it in this manner.

Hegel uses the word “Force” in the separate Phenomenology and in the ‘Zusatz’ to par. 422. to express such an abstract identity.

Maybe the example of the magnet can help. The magnet and the metal object beside it as perceived objects. I see the one attracting the other. The universal is that there is such a thing as magnetic force, that may be found in many perceived objects all of which are magnets. The individual thing here (this particular magnet) then becomes an appearance of magnetic force in general.  So the thought of magnetic force can now be seen as the ‘abstract identity’ behind the perceived object – summarizing the perceived things and their relationships, including all of their inner contradictions.

Second, this manifold of perceived qualities are also contained in the notion of appearance. But this content of the appearance is not an absolute given, but a ‘inner and simple distinction’. The difference between magnets and metal objects, the movement of attraction and repulsion, is simply an expression of the universal. They are instances of a law. There is a regularity to the appearances and their vanishing and appearing, that can be expressed as a ‘quiet and universal depiction’ (a mirror image), or as a realm of the ‘laws’ of appearances.

Such laws do not explain, but summarize in an universal form, whatever the appearances are.

That we have truly arrived at the level of understanding, of thinking, is expressed in the opening sentence of par. 423.

The law has its necessity in itself. Why? because the distinction between law and the apperances it governs, are only within itself. Let me try to explain. When I apply a law, I do so on the basis of the appearances that I perceive. The law contains nothing but those appearances in the form of the universal. These appearances themselves are what they are, and ‘behave’ according to that law. In the perceived objects – as appearances –  therefore there is no distinction between the law according to which they behave and whatever they are themselves.

I can make that distinction however within myself  and talk about the application of a law, or interpret the appearances as giving rise to (soliciting) that application. The distinction therefore falls within me and the law that I think of is not dependent upon  something in reality outside of it. If not dependent upon something other than my own thought, it is necessary within itself. The determinations that I can talk about are immediately contained in the other: the distinctions within the law are at the same time the distinctions within the appearances.

What does it mean however to have such a distinction between law and appearance – between thought and perceived reality – only within myself? In reality the Law is active within the object – in my thought it is the same though I can make the distinction. I can further distinguish between reality that follows the law and its appearances as indistinguishable and myself who is able to make that distinction. The distinction that I make therefore in my thought, is actually no distinction at all in reality. I distinguish what is indistinguishable in reality. But since law and appearances in my thought are identical to the same in reality, the distinction is actually no distinction at all.

The shape of consciousness that tried to oppose subject and object and keep them separate and independent, is now vanished. The final distinction is lost and seen as a formal addition that actually does not imply a distinction at all. Consciousness, the subject of it, has an object that is actually not distinct from it. It is a consciousness (as subject) of consciousness (as object). It is therefore self-consciousness in the sense of this consciousness of itself as object! This ‘ as object’ is important to note here. It is NOT a consciousness of itself as such. Consciousness knows itself as its object.

That only means that consciousness knows everything it knows to be ‘his’. I know about myself in every sense-certainty, perception and understanding of an object. The self-consciousness that Hegel will deal with in the next chapter is therefore tainted by this abstract identity. It is abstract individual self-consciousness, and not the universal self-c0nsciousness that is Reason itself.

The Certainty of Philosophical Understanding

Especially in connection with Hegel there is, it seems, a widespread misunderstanding about the nature of our philosophical knowledge. Many have been tempted to assume that the ‘absolute knowing’ that is the goal of the Phenomenology of Spirit and the ‘necessity’ of the dialectic method, implies an absolute perfect evidence and certainty that can withstand any and all objections.

That would assume that Hegel’s philosophy is aimed at elucidating or constructing an intellectual activity that is perfectly closed in itself, pure speculative intellectual understanding would then imply a pure and perfect evidence and clarity and certainty. Such a certainty would then not only be required at the end of the phenomenology of Spirit, but precisely before that, in every step that leads up to this divine goal. After all, didn’t Hegel himself stress the fact that in this work philosophy finally became true science, that is a form of knowledge that is perfectly demonstrated from its premises, that can ground even its most basic axioms, presume nothing therefore and through that be ‘absolute’ knowledge? Our ‘natural consciousness’ of course has to be overcome, a higher stage has to be reached where we drop our previous misunderstandings and now become perfect in our knowledge. The Phenomenology after all is the road on which this natural consciousness, our every day knowledge, goes through its various stages in order to reach this lofty goal.

For Hegel however, the human intellectual activity, even when she takes on a scientific shape, is not simply autonomous and never purely speculative. Even in its highest form, the human mind is being driven and determined to some extent by our human desires. The human intellect is part of the whole of the natural desires and urges that articulate themselves in the most humble of biological faculties as eating, drinking and sex, as well as in the loftiest cultural enterprises.

Our conscious urges and desires, that are solicited by our intellect itself and determined by it, are not completely dependent upon this ‘lower’ sphere and so to speak ‘instinctual’ being. The whole of our nature comes to light within our consciousness and becomes transparent and is equally transcended toward goals that as such are beyond our natural instincts.

To this one must add that our natural biological urges are constantly focusing our intellect towards those goals and task that are relevant for survival or for the continuation of the life we lead. Our philosophical endeavors, even though they as such reach for a truth that transcends the relative and personal truth of every day life, is still very much enclosed in the whole of our natural life. Even though these natural desires do not directly determine the object and truth of our understanding, they do drive our intellect forward and motivate it to operate in a certain fashion. The direct determination of the intellect is received from its object because that is precisely what differentiates the intellect from all other faculties: the orientation towards the truth as such in distinction to relative truths and ideas and concepts that are simply functional for survival.

Still we are prone to focus on those objects and ideas that conform to the present state of our desires and needs and will disregard to some extent those objects and ideas that seem to have no function to that end. Nevertheless, ultimately, even this complex of desires and urges will be under the control of the intellect – normally – and we are able to prevent them for determining our thoughts. There is the attitude of the quiet observer, or of contemplation, that will hold our desires at bay and foster a ‘disinterested’ view of the object. The intellect will train the life of desiring in order for it to become focused on the more than personal truth. Our affective life will become more or less rational. Objectivity will be the standard of our intellectual judgment.

To find and accept the truth is therefore not a matter of the procedure of a pure intellect alone. There is something like a ‘mental balance’ involved, that needs to be acquired and practiced. We are always ‘becoming’ spirit, we are never a finished product.

Now my second point is, that the kind of pure necessity and perfect demonstration of truths that we envision, guided by the notion of ‘absolute knowledge’, looks more like that of the mathematician. Only a purely formal knowledge, like that of mathematics, can provide such absolute certainty and transparency. That is so for the simple reason that mathematics has a pure axiomatic starting point and all of its contents are defined and construed by the intellect itself. Therefore in principle, no mathematical object can have an insurmountable obscurity.

Philosophy deals however with the True, that is, the Truth of the real, and the reality of the truth. There will always be some distance between the concrete object and our intellectual understanding, not in principle, because we need to understand that ultimately there is an identity between the real and thought, but in the reality and experience of our intellectual life. There is an irreducible inadequacy of our conceptual understanding and the absolute truth notwithstanding the principle of this identity. Not as such therefore, is there a gap between thought and understanding, but to us, as finite human thinkers, there is. Every insight that we gain will therefore always be relative and problematic and can always be attacked by doubt and counter-arguments.

For that reason Hegel spoke several times about the necessity of the confidence in the Spirit. Every intellectual activity and philosophy the most, required an attitude of surrender to its object. Every level of our approach to the truth requires that. Not because that surrender to the truth – the unconditional acceptance of truth wherever it shows itself and whatever it is – is formally a requirement of the intellect. That would imply that that the desire for truth would produce it, and thereby negate it – because truth cannot be the result of our self-interest. It does imply however that even our speculative understanding does not have the power to convince the mind irrespective of its resistance to it, or its unwillingness to accept it. The intellect as such (formally) cannot affirm and deny a truth in one act; but I as a person am able to deny a truth that my intellect has reached. My own intellect, driven by my natural desires, is able to focus on whatever is still unclear and problematic and imperfect in an expression of the truth and on that basis withdraw itself from the evidence it has already reached. It can withdraw into itself with this imperfection as its motive.

Besides the human intellect as such, there need to be an attitude of willingness, of benevolence, toward the truth, that will accept the preponderance of the evidence and the clarity reached, even though imperfect, and on that basis also decide to ‘go with it.’  The necessity of that ‘willingness’ can of course also be considered and established by the intellect so that it is not blind faith we are talking about. The acceptance of truth is therefore always dependent upon this attitude that will allow itself to be persuaded. A definite demonstration of truth that goes beyond my personal attitudes as is possible in mathematics, is therefore not something we need to strive for in philosophy.

Philosophy, even as rigorously scientific as Hegel wants it to be, remains a ‘subjective knowledge’. After all,

“Science appears as a subjective knowledge, with freedom as its goal and it itself as the way to produce it.” (Encyclopedia par. 576.)

The Natural Understanding of Force

Perception takes the Thing as its truth and sees it dissolved into its properties. The universal lies above and beyond the thing perceived and contradicts the posited oneness of the object of perception. The truth for perceiving consciousness was the identity of the thing with itself and it turned out that the essential characteristics of the Thing were actually contradictory: the One and the Many, being-for-itself and being-for-other.

Now the truth of the thing become the truth of the relation between a Force and its expressions and consciousness as understanding tries to find the truth in the one-sided notion of a thing that exercises a force. (BTW, the notion of relation that is involved here, is according to Hegel an unconditioned universal.” ) It takes Force to be the truth, but finds it in an object as much as it can, it finds it in ‘objects that are forceful.’ But that is not the truth. The unconditioned universal which is the object of understanding – the inner and invisible essence of the world of things – is the totality of the relationships of force and expressions. So it’s not about ‘a’ things with Force, or ‘a force’ and not even about a mulitiplicity of forces, but the idea of Force as a universal itself.

Note: of course this idea of Force has nothing to do with the modern idea of a force in physics. Hegel is more referring to a standard contemporary understanding of force  – of natural consciousness – where people generally will believe that one can only know an effect or expression, but never the force itself. Like Heidegger said: “Hegel assumes the general and immediate conception of force.” (Hegels Phanomenologie des Geistes, p. 165) The nature of the force as such would then be totally mysterious. In that we are reminded of the similar idea of the thing-in-itself (Kant) that mysteriously is the unknown reality that human beings can only know as appearances.

How do people come to some understanding of force?

When you look at something that is immediately given, you are aware of the fact that it is fleeting. It will appear and disappear, move and come to rest again. That will prompt you to go above and beyond the perceived and assume that what you see is an effect of a cause, or the property of a substance.The external perceived is taken as an appearance of something unseen, internal, hidden. Now how can we call this unseen ‘something’ a reality (as cause, substance) when it is we who have ‘deduced’ it, or have posited it ion the basis of the perceived? This unseen reality is actually something that consciousness just ‘thinks’. And how does it help me understand the perceived by merely referring to something that is its unseen cause? Does it help me understand the perceived in some way? If we want to explain the perceived, what does it help to posit the same contents again, but now in the mode of causation? I see something moving, and I posit the unseen cause of that movement.  I identify that cause with something else, and posit a new cause of the motion of the first cause. Take Hume’s billiard balls. The second ball moves, the cause of that is a first ball, the cause of that first ball’s movement is something else etc. Ad infinitum.

In the case of Force, one and the same contents is posited twice: one time as the effect and the other time as its cause. Something that was Many, a medium of expressions (the phenomenaa that I observe) is now posited as One and as the singular origin of the same. The One Force becomes mirrored in itself and becomes ‘two forces’ but the contents of perception remain the same.

By applying the concept of force like this, it becomes obvious that we do not yet understand the nature of a ‘form of reflection’ or the nature of the concept. We think that the concept is immediately real in the sense of something that lies beyond and above our consciousness – yet we also understand that we are the ones that posit, think, reflect and thereby produce the thought and its application ourselves. So how can it be reality too?

And how does it come about that we have one perceived contents in two different ways? Force after all is taken as being-in-itself – as reality – and as being-for-other – as concept. According to its contents both are the same, which we then assume to be the case for the ‘real’ force. But according to the form they are different – a difference that we will assume as consciousness and tell ourselves that is only we who make the distinction between the concept of Force and force as reality – a distinction that ultimately cannot be maintained anyway.

The explanation of the world on the basis of ‘force’ is irrelevant and flawed. It is like the famous story about the medical student who was asked on his examination “why does opium induce sleep?” And then he had to answer: “Because opium has a sleep-inducing force.” The same contents twice, but no real explanation therefore.

Nevertheless, this is the first instance of consciousness operating with some kind of concept. It is the unconditioned universal. Even if it turns out to be pretty empty.

BTW, Hegel does not say that Kant was just operating at this level, but he seems to criticize that Kant assumed this ‘natural consciousness’ without examining that critically and on that basis built his transcendental philosophy just to ground it.

The Emergence of the Second Force – par. 138

Force needs to be solicited, prompted to express itself – the reflection into itself of the expressions that produces the unity of Force needs it as well. They are after all the same movement seen from two sides.

The ‘other’ of Force that solicits it, is also Force. What does that mean? I take it to mean something like this: when we understand two things in their relationship, each of them actively posits the other or is the invitation for the other to be active. In my former post I referred to Kant’s categories. Can we draw on that here?

Take substance and accident. Substance seems to denote the active principle, because it is expressing itself in its accidents. But the accidents, aren’t they ‘inviting’ the substance to this expression? After all, according to the concept of Force, the ‘substance’ of it is just the reflection into itself of the expressions. We can further say that a cause is ‘expressed’ in its effects. But can’t we also say that a cause is the reflection into itself of what we take as ‘effects’? In that sense the effects solicit the cause. The truth of these two forms of the category is then in the reciprocity, the third set of Kant’s relational categories. Just as in his Logic, the reciprocity is the thought form that expresses the inner truth of every idea of relation.

The language that Hegel uses indicates that he is thinking of two separate objects that invite each other to be active. There are two Forces present and each is independent and yet in a relation. Their relation is analyzed as follows:

The second Force solicits the first one and is itself a medium of expressions. The Force that is being solicited therefore appears as the One. However, the second Force that is doing the soliciting, is a medium of expressions only because it is itself solicited to be such. As being solicited it too, is a One.

Can we apply that to an example like this? Take a metal object and a magnet. The magnet and the metal object are equally independent things. Now the magnet is being effective because the metal object invites it to do something. It becomes this one magnet by the movement of the metal object. The magnet is solicited to be this One magnet. In that sense the metal object is  a Force as well, because it  certainly does something. Or rather in Hegel’s language: it expresses itself in its other. Therefore it can be seen as the One too, and the magnet that was first seen as soliciting, can be seen as the medium of expressions – the attraction it exercises being one of them.

That seems to be the meaning of Hegel’s statement:

Consequently, this distinction, too, which obtained between the two Forces, one of which was supposed to be the soliciting, the other the solicited, Force is transformed into the same reciprocal (!) interchange of determinateness. (p. 84)

Relation and Force – a Note on Kant

Let’s stay for a moment at the level of par 137 and 138 of Hegel’s Phenomenology. We know at that stage that “Force” is the Notion – the Unconditioned Universal – that defines the object for understanding. This Notion is not yet understood as Notion, but consciousness tries to takes this again as something other than itself, as an object that is distinguished from itself and yet related to it in the act of knowledge. We also know that understanding is not something separate from the earlier stages but their inner ground. Sense-certainty and perception have lost their independent truth, but they are still ‘at work’ within understanding. The perceived “things” are understood through the notion of their inner essence, the unity that controls their relationship. But there is still perception and within that sense-certainty, in the sense that qualities are being “sensed” and things are being perceived.

In par. 138 Hegel shows that the idea that Force needs something to be effective, something soliciting it to express itself, that must also be Force – it implies relationship as well, a “being-for-other” that prompts that other also to be-for-another” – yet both remain also independent ‘things’.

“What appears as an ‘other’ and solicits Force, both to expression and to a return into itself, directly proves to be itself Force.” (par. 138, p. 83 Miller)

One might understand this a bit better by making reference to the categories of Relation that Kant discussed in his Critique of Pure Reason. (KdrV – B 106)

3
                      Of Relation
   Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)
   Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
   Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)

Kant talks about pure categories that can be apriori – before all experience – applied to objects of intuition (Anschauung), which correspond to the logical functions of all possible judgments given before.

The same function which gives unity to the different representation in a judgement, gives also unity to the  mere synthesis of different representa-tions (Vorstellungen) in an intuition (Anschauung); and this unity we call the pure concept (-ion) of  the understanding. (Verstandesbegriff) (B104)

The synthesis, that is the “act (Handlung) of joining different  representa-tions to each other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition”, must be brought “to concepts” and only through this additional unifying act can we have knowledge. The general representation of a specific mode in which the imaginative synthesis of representations can be comprehended in the form of a concept is the “pure synthesis of conceptions.” (B 104)

According to Kant therefore we have pure concepts and pure intuitions. It is the job of the understanding to give determinacy to these intuitions according to the specific mode of the categories and in so doing experience of the world is produced.

Hegel praises Kant for talking about this ‘synthesis’ of sensuality and understanding. it is a major step forward over against the one-sided nature of empiricism that favors intuition and rationalism that equally one-sided favors the concept. Kant at least saw the problem! Nevertheless, Kant did not arrive at the deeper truth.

This is an intuitive understanding, or a rational intuition; but Kant does not take it as such and does not understand it, does not bring these thoughts truly together, the idea that both elements of knowledge are indeed one… Thought, Understanding remains something specific, sensuality remains something specific, and they are connected in a superficial manner, like a piece of wood and a leg by a rope. (Geschichte der Philosophie, Suhrkamp, p. 329)

Now if the pure concepts actually determine the shape of the object as universal, based on their previous being given in intuition, aren’t we talking exactly about the same thing as we find in the Phenomenology? The concepts represent the universality of the thing perceived, nonetheless they are not dependent upon intuitions and perceptions, they are rather required for these intuitions to be about an object in the first place. They look very much like the inner essence that Hegel talks about at this stage.

When Hegel speaks about “Force” he seems to summarize the Table of Categories by showing that a mode of relation in general is the key to understanding the genesis of the object of understanding. Force is like the super category under which all these other categories can be comprehended. Especially of course the categories of Relation as such that we quoted above.

Substance and accident are like “forces” where the one is expressed in the other. Can we not understand ‘substance’ to mean the reflection into itself of its accidents? And is it not true that these accidents can be seen as properties and taken independently by abstracting from the relationship? And the same seems to be self-evident in the categories of causality (effect) and community (reciprocity). When Hegel discusses in par. 138 the nature of the two Forces that interact and solicit each other, he is not talking just about what can be called a proper ‘force’ in any scientific sense, but he is drawing attention to the the structure in which the perceived is brought together into one object. An other word for Force therefore seems to be “Dynamic Relation”.

In sum: Hegel’s category of Force is the hidden unifying principle of the dynamic categories in Kant’s “Table of Categories”, the first immediate form of the concept. Hegel’s discussion of it moves beyond the superficial synthesis and elucidates the ultimate unity of thought and reality that Kant could never achieve because of the dualism of his starting point.