50 pages • 1 hour read
Phenomenology of Spirit
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Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Consciousness”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Sense-Certainty: or the ‘This’ and ‘Meaning’”
Sensory knowledge is the richest and most trustworthy type of knowledge. The experience of an object through the senses is immediate, and a person’s reaction is immediate as well. However, Hegel suggests that sense-certainty is an impoverished form of truth. There is little to be gathered from this simple connection between internal experience and the external world.
The dialectical process always seeks unity between the “I” and the external object. Sense-certainty is distinguished because it does not yet recognize an “I.” There is no distinction between the self and the external. It is a qualitative experience that cannot be measured. While sensory experience is trustworthy, it provides little information other than the existence of the object. Hegel asserts that it only confirms that something is.
Sensory experience is centered in a succession of “nows.” It cannot consider the future or past. Instead, its experience is a continuation of present moments. When something new is presented, the old disappears, or is negated, but the present moment persists: “‘Here’ itself does not vanish; on the contrary, it abides constant in the vanishing of the house, the tree, etc.” (61). Hegel explains that the human experience of now is illusive and false. As soon as one begins to think about or speak about the now, one is speaking about the past. Therefore, experience is constantly changing and in motion. Hegel praises sense-certainty for its trustworthiness and clarity, but he criticizes it for its simplicity and negation.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Perception: or the Thing and Deception”
Perception builds on sense-certainty by introducing distinction between the subject and the object. Hegel presents a view of perception that builds from sensory experience to construct ideas about the properties of objects in the external world. Perception requires an immediate interaction between the logical mind and the exterior world, revealing the difference between the self and the object. This differentiation is the principle. Sense-certainty is passive; it happens to the individual. Perception, however, is a logical action. Objects are simple entities; they exist whether there is an individual perceiving them or not. However, perception is unstable; it only occurs when an individual applies it.
Hegel introduces negation’s role in perception. Objects are perceived by what they are not. They are distinguished through perception by difference—including the negation to the self: “The This is, therefore, established as not This, or as something superseded; and hence not as Nothing, but as a determinate Nothing” (68). This leads to sense-certainty, which emerges from the interpretation of sensory information. The unity of sense-certainty creates a unity of principle, sometimes called an “essence.”
Hegel outlines the process of perception in three steps. First, the individual passively receives sensory information. Second, the mind applies negation. Third, universal properties emerge as a result of negation. This process of perception establishes the thing. A plurality of things, or universality, furthers the divide between the self and the exterior world through negation. Consciousness is constructed by the distinction between the self and the object. Hegel asserts that only objects can be taken as true and real. Consciousness is fluid and changing because perception changes. The individual applies will and individualism to perception, making each person’s experience unique and independent. Therefore, perception is still a limited and unrealized form of cognition. Error occurs when the perception differs from reality. However, like perception, the external object is also unstable. It can only present itself through the medium of perception.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Force and the Understanding: Appearance and the Supersensible World”
While perception is an important part of cognition, Hegel argues that it is not the end point for consciousness. In consciousness, the individual’s mind moves beyond merely finding distinctions between objects and the object and the self. Instead, it develops the Notion. Perception leads to universality. The object and its qualities that are related to other objects with similar properties move beyond the being-for-itself and become a part of a larger system of unity. An unconditioned universal emerges when the being-for-itself and the being-for-another, or the reality of the object and the perception of the object, merge. This unity is understanding, and Hegel asserts that this is where consciousness emerges:
This true essence of Things has now the character of not being immediately for consciousness; on the contrary, consciousness has a mediated relation to the inner being and as the Understanding (86).
Hegel explores the term “force” through the perspectives of Newton and Kant. Both view the origin of knowledge as experience and perception as the analysis of that experience. Newton’s conception of “force” is used in philosophy to understand changes in motion. Hegel suggests force is a concept belonging to understanding, which examines the unity and differences in universals and perception. Therefore, force is not an operating mechanism of cognition, it is a concept that describes the unifying of perception and the external.
Hegel criticizes the specificity of laws championed by philosophers like Newton. The law of motion, for example, is determined by an object’s relation to time and space. Hegel asserts that the law of motion seeks to ignore the differences and negations that make up both space and time, as well as the concentrated whole. He suggests that as laws become more general and explain concepts more broadly, they decrease in specificity and accuracy. Hegel applies this criticism to all natural sciences, arguing that they do not come close to touching the comprehensive, complex, and vast wealth of knowledge that lies within experience.
Part 1 Analysis
In Part 1, Hegel breaks down three types of knowledge or understanding and how they relate to cognition and consciousness. Throughout his work, Hegel provides a triangular structure to make sense of the concepts he explores. In these chapters, sense, perception, and understanding form the three points on the triangle of consciousness.
Hegel suggests that sensory knowledge is a rich form of knowledge because of its immediacy and trustworthiness. For example, imagine a baby is given a banana. The banana is instantly recognizable for its many sensory qualities: color, shape, smell, taste. The child experiences the banana as an immediate knowledgeable connection to the external object. Sensory knowledge accepts what is given in its raw form. The baby does not yet have a contextual understanding of bananas. She will not look at the external object and think about a time when her mother made banana pudding for her or where bananas grow, nor will she connect her sensory experience to her own consciousness.
Hegel’s thoughts about sensory experience build upon Kant’s discussions of the materialism of sensory information. Hegel relates sensory-experience to time by asserting that this form of cognition can only exist within a succession of present moments, meaning that it does not consider past or future or anything outside of immediate, individual experience: “[T]he immediacy of my seeing, hearing, and so on; the vanishing of the single Now and Here that we mean is prevented by the fact that I hold them fast” (61). To explain this principle, imagine the baby’s mother takes away the banana and gives the baby an apple. The baby is instantly engrossed in the experience of the apple and its own appeal to the senses. The baby is not thinking about why the banana has disappeared and been replaced with another object, nor is the child wondering what fruit her parents may hand her next. She is locked into the present.
Hegel suggests that people must move beyond this simple form of thinking to achieve a higher level of Self-Awareness and the Spirit. Perception builds on sensory knowledge by applying a process of breaking down experience. An example of this can be found in listening to music and considering the many instruments and elements of music that contribute to the whole. In this form of cognition, the individual applies perception to the knowledge. Understanding is an even higher level of cognition: It unites the individual’s perception and the external world and acknowledges how something that may be true for the individual may also be true for others. It also draws a distinction between the self and the object.
These three levels of cognition contribute to The Evolution of Truth and Consciousness. Consciousness does not emerge until the first two levels are complete. The mind understands the external object through its relationship with, and negation to, the self and other objects. Perception is determined by the difference rather than the collective nature of things: “White is white only in opposition to black, and so on, and the Thing is a One precisely by being opposed to others” (72-73). This leads to understanding, which is the source of consciousness. Hegel argues that human consciousness cannot be limited by laws which seek to unify all experiences. While there are unifying principles, the conscious experience varies too greatly to be subjected to this form of universality.
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