Hegel on self-consciousness

Student number: 100783213 25th of November 2014
Candidate number: 1503259







PY2001: Introduction to European philosophy





Critically discuss how Hegel sees the development of self-consciousness through interaction with the other.






















Word Count: 1126
Hegel is a major figure of a movement called German Idealism. In the introduction of his Phenomenology of Mind, he compares the stages of the life of a philosophical argument as the ones of a blooming bud. When the argument is first created, it is a bud, then it is revised, processed, and becomes a flower. However, the flower is only here to mature and give fruit, which itself, will give a seed. What Hegel wants to show is that one idea never loses its value, even if it is proven wrong or incomplete by another one because if that first argument had not been expressed, the second one would never have existed. For him, Philosophy is a never-ending dynamic process. Analogically, in the second section of the book, he gives a similar account of the development of self-consciousness through the interaction with others. He aims to describe how one self can only be aware of itself through the eyes of another one. Idealists such as Kant had previously defined the distinction between subjects and objects and how the consciousness of objects is only possible through the awareness of the self as a subject, distinctively detached from the observed object. Hegel goes further and argues that subjects are not simply subjects, as they become objects to other subjects. Thus self-consciousness is the product of interactions between two forms of consciousness. In this essay, we will show how Hegel describes the stages of this development. To do so, we will first determine what is consciousness and demonstrate that a subject's consciousness can be an object in his consciousness. Then we will examine the importance of self-certainty and the significance of the Lordship and Bondage dialectic in Hegel's argument. Finally we will show that rationality is a key determinant to his view on the self-consciousness process.


The first psychological account of consciousness can be found in Descartes' writings. For him, consciousness is the immediate relation between a subject and the world, or the immediate awareness of the subject about the world. He refers to senses, imagination, intellect and will as thoughts and puts emphasis on the word immediate to exclude any consequences of the thought. (Larry Jorgensen, 2010) The problem was that the representation of the world in the mind of the subject might not correspond to what the world actually is. Am I aware of the object itself or am I aware of the thought of this object within me? Thus, he adds the notion of ideas. An idea, for Descartes, is the reflective act by which we become aware of the thought. He believes that we should doubt everything that is not consciously available to us. In other words doubt everything that is not within us. Hence the famous "I think therefore I am". However, he acknowledges that if such knowledge does provide evidence concerning the existence of the subject itself, it does not provide any proof that the external world, or that the subject's representation of it actually exists.

For Hegel, Descartes failed to make the transition from the certainty of an object to its actual truth. (Hegel, 1805-6) Descartes believed that the object in consciousness is simply the perceptional representation of that object, or the object in itself, independent and external from the subject. Hegel points out that it is in fact simply the way in which the object appears in consciousness. Within consciousness we have a "certainty, which is the same as its truth". (Hegel, 1807) For Hegel, Descartes issue of translating subjective certainty, or the object in consciousness, into objective truth, or knowledge about the empirical world, has been overcome. The difference between appearance and reality lies within consciousness. If it is the case, then the notion of self-consciousness becomes ambiguous: if consciousness, and the truth in the object within it, lies in consciousness itself and if self-consciousness refers to self-knowing, how can a subject see his own mind as an independent object? How can the object in his consciousness be his consciousness itself? Hegel argues that self-consciousness is only achievable through "the return from otherness" (Hegel, 1807) or the relation between one person and another.

For Hegel the relation between the subject and any object, including its own mind, is a process composed of two stages (Cognition, 2004). The first one is the perceptual representation of the object, or whatever is to be known through immediate perception. The second, is the potential for mediation through what he calls desire. What Hegel means by desire is the idea that conscious creatures, due to their awareness of the world necessarily have to assert themselves into it. The subject is faced by two kinds of objects: the knowledge he desires to acquire and itself. Self-consciousness is the process by which both of these come together into a unity of the object itself with itself. An important fact to note is that Hegel puts emphasis on the subject's appropriation of the object. The object is not simply itself but also what we "want it to be" or what we make it become. The author refers to such changes as the essence of the object (Cognition, 2004). Since the essence of the object changes as our relation to it changes, as if it were a living thing, Hegel comes to say, "The object has come to life".

Desire is therefore the medium by which conscious beings assert themselves into the world. It is a dynamic process that pushes the subject out of itself and into the world as it drives it to interact with his surrounding. Hegel states, "Self consciousness is Desire in general" (Hegel, 1807). According to Pippin, such a term is used because the way of knowing oneself in knowing or doing anything must imply a projection in time, to understand the reasons why that self knew or did that thing, as opposed to a partial and momentary understanding of the action or thought. (Pippin, 2011) Thus, self-consciousness is only achievable through social interaction because the subject desires to understand himself through the eyes of another subject and therefore becomes object to the latter. It is when the self accepts this idea that it is both subject and object that self-consciousness emerges. Self-consciousness is an essence understood as both an object and a being. Only then it "exists in and for itself because and by way of its existing in and for itself for an other; i.e., it exists only as recognized" (Hegel, 1807) By factoring in the social nature of the subjects, Hegel disregards Kant's argument that the only way an object is one is through the eyes of an abstract cognitive subject because from Hegel's perspective their relation is a motion from the knower to what is known as well as from what is known to the knower. (Cognition, 2004)

Recognition is a crucial point in Hegel's argument. What leads a form of consciousness to be conscious of itself is by being recognized by another form of consciousness. He states: "Self-consciousness attains its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness." (Hegel, 1807) The last assumption does not mean that for one man to become self-conscious he needs to be recognized as so by another one. In fact the relations between those look rather like a struggle from one to be recognized by the other. He develops his argument through the famous Lordship and Bondage dialectic. A lord and a bondsman are two subjects unequal to one another as the bondman depends on the lord. Some people falsely call it the Master and slave dialectic, it is important to note that a bondman, in medieval terms, is a partially free tenant (The free dictionary, 2013) and not a slave. A slave would be completely objectified by the lord whereas a bondman, due to his partial freedom is somehow recognized, but far from fully considered as a subject by the lord and thus, this leaves place for his struggle for recognition. The point being that the lord does not recognize the bondman as consciously equal to him and therefore frustrates his desire to assert his own self-consciousness.

The bondman is left stuck in a position in which he constantly has to reflect on who and what he is in relation to himself and to the lord, or as Hegel refers to it, to reflect on his otherness. (SparkNotes, 2005) On the other hand, the lord does not recognize his servant as a conscious subject and therefore denies the otherness he would find in the bondman. The assumption Hegel made that the self-conscious subject was being both object and subject at the same time is really clear in the case of the bondman and we can easily understand that in Hegel's eyes the bondman can achieve self-consciousness when the lord, stuck in his dominant position, cannot. Furthermore, the bondman can find satisfaction through labour because he understands consequences of his work and the impact it has on the object he manipulates. By changing his own essence through his work, and by contemplating what he has achieved as a conscious being, he frees himself from his natural state. He differs himself from what he orignally was. Moreover, not only the bondman can enjoy a state of comfort from satisfying the lord's will, but he also enjoys a position in which he has a savoir-faire that the lord does not: the skills required for the services the bondman provides to the lord are completely unknown to the latter. The lord remains passive; he is not involved in a dynamic reflective process and therefore fails to achieve self-consciousness by negating his subordinate's consciousness.

A question that could be raised is wheather the Lordship and Bondage dialectic refers to this specific relation relevant at the time or if it is a metaphor, which describes situations in which we all find ourselves throughout life. It seems that Hegel does not try to portray a specific moment in time, he aims to accompany the reader through the evolution of thought in the history of human civilization. This unequal relation that is the bondman and the lord's is an analogy: throughout our existence, we experience some situations in which we are the bondman but also some in which we are the bondman. This metaphor can be taken to a metaphysical level: the experience of self-consciousness can be found in the relation humans, as finite, mortal beings, entertain with the absolute master, death (Waterman 2003). Death is a fatality, which makes human beings fundamentally equal in nature. The first step to self-consciousness is the subject's realization of his own finitude and it is only through work that he can internalize and transform it.

Since self-consciousness is desire in general, does the fact does the lord cannot achieve self-consciousness means that he does not have any desire? Yes indeed, he doesn't have any desire if we look at Kant's definition of it described by Pippin: Desire is the expression of a complex cognitive ability: Reason (Pippin, 2011). In his words: "a creation with rational responsiveness is one that demands justification" and that "feels the lack when such justification is lacking". The emphasis on rationality is crucial because self-consciousness as we understand it in Hegel's work, is a dynamic process. Since it implies a reflection on the otherness, it must be a rational one. Thus, this does not mean that the lord is not capable of reasoning but that both the lord and the bondman are fundamentally equal in nature, only differing in their contextual social status, which the lord fails to acknowledge; hence, the lord is not rational.

Rationality is a key concept in Hegel's development of self-consciousness. At the time he worte the Phenomenology of Mind, liberal values that we take for granted today were not quite implemented in the society he lived in: the value of the individual life was still relative, slavery was still common… In fact, those values just started to emerge following the Enlightenment. For Hegel, the world was becoming more and more rational to the point where he charactarizes self-consciousness as an achievement of modernity (Jürgen Habermas, 2008). Two centuries later, slavery still exists, humans kill other humans, the western world created an unsustainable consumerist society which might very well be driving the world to its end but it does not prove his point wrong: such actions and habits are no longer justifiable like they were in the past and certainly no longer justifiable at all. This is precisely why newly created institutions aim to protect these values. Our world seems indeed to become more and more rational from a structural, moral and relational perspective. David Graeber describes these achievements by what he calls "everyday communism" (David Graeber, 2010). In everyday life, we respect other's liberties, by simplyqueuing in a supermarket, for example. When the subject realises that he is an object to another subject and vice and versa, he aknowledges his and others' fundemental right to exist. The rational process of self-consciousness leads to societal peace. By becoming aware of ourselves through others and aware of others through ourselves, we might just be taking the path of a better future.


We saw that as opposed to Descartes who believed that the only things we could be certain of were within us, Hegel believed that there is a correspondance between what is understood and perceived in consciousness. Then, we wonder what would happen if the object percieved and understood happened to be the subject's own consciousness. For such an object to become both in and for itself, the subject must engage in a dynamic process called self-consciousness. For Hegel, self-consciousness is Desire itself. Desire is the medium through which conscious beings force themselves into the world and interact with it. Self-consciousness is therefore only achievable trhough interactions with others. The subject must then reflect on his otherness, or on what and who he is in relation of another subject, and become an object in the eyes of the latter. The social nature of conscious beings makes them both subject and object. He outlines his principle through the Lordship and Bondage dialectic and show that self-consciousness is a struggle for recognition in an unequal relationship of dependence. When the subject in a dominant position remains passive and negates the consciousness of his subordinate, the latter is able, through active work to internalise and transform his situation, and derive satisfaction from it. Such a process requires a rational subject, because that subject must desire justification in his action in order for him to understand and internalise the actions and reflections he engages himself in. Such justification can only be discovered in his otherness. Hegel's account of consciousness echoed through the age and is at the origin of a large number of works and researches, and not only philosophical ones. E.g. the psychological theory of mind certainly takes its roots in the phenomenology of spirit, moreover, the Lordship and Bondage dialectic heavily influenced the way Marx described the relations between economical classes. To conclude, it would be interested to assess the profit-driven economic system we live in from a Hegelian perspective and maybe find out that such a system is not rational since it directly implies the economic dominance of an enterprise or individual over the market.















Bibliography

Cognition, "Hegel's truth of Self-certainty", University press of California, 2004

Free Dictionary "Bondman Medieval Definition". Farlex, 2013.

Graeber, David "On the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations" Open Anthropology Cooperative Press, 2010 p.34

Habermas, Jürgen, "Between Naturalism and Religion" Google Books Polity Press, 2008. P.147

Hegel, Friedrich "Phenomenology of Mind", 1807, Oxford Univerty press, 1997, Paragraph 164, 167, 168
Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1805-6, trans. E S Haldane, 1805-6, p167

Jorgensen, Larry M. "Seventeenth-Century Theories of Consciousness." Stanford University. Stanford University, 2010

Robert Pippin "Hegel on Self-consciousness: Desire and Death in the Phenomenology of Spirit", Princeton university Press, 2011, p.56, 59

SparkNotes. "Phenomenology of Spirit, Chapter 4." Ed. Sparknote Editors. SparkNotes, 2005.

Waterman, Joseph "The Life, Work and Death of Self-Consciousness in Hegel's Master-Slave Dialectic" 2003. P.64