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Philosophy
Thoughts on Hegel's Force and Understanding
A few days ago, I read the section of Hegel's Chapter A: Unconsciousness in Phenomenology titled Force and Understanding. There were a few parts that stood out to me as I read them. Here, I will attempt to apply them to my understanding, experiences and perspective.
While reading numbered paragraphs 133-135, I wrote at the top of the page "result of a notion is posited as the unconditional result of an unconditional universal — this is a fallacy." Hegel spoke of the role of Consciousness in apprehending the Essence and its tendency to fill out what is contained in the result. In other words, we assign meaning and substance to a Thing through the result of the manifestation of its Essence. This developed Thing appears to consciousness as what it immediately appears to be, and not its totality. What I wrote, a fallacy that often occurs in understanding something, explains the phenomena of those using their subjective knowledge as objective truths. A result or two of a subject establishes itself as the unconditional result in subjective thought. It is a fallacy because the content is taken into subjective consciousness as true, a direct result of the unconditional universal. I understand that what I am saying is a bit difficult to wrap one's head around, so I have provided a pair of diagrams to illustrate:
One mistake I foresee people making from this is mistaking conditions for properties. A Thing's properties are immediately perceived in its appearance. They are part of the end result of the developmental process of a Thing and have no influence on said Thing. A Thing's conditions, on the other hand, interact with the Notion in a process that is multi-staged. Furthermore, conditions determine the starting point, development, and properties of the fully realized Thing. Now, properties can be a condition, but only in the development of another Thing, and not their original Thing.
I used some vocab from this next section earlier because I thought they were suitable for explaining my thoughts. On numbered paragraph 143, I underlined the passage "This 'being' is therefore called appearance; for we call being that is directly and in its own self a non-being a surface show; it is appearance, a totality of show. This totality, as totality or as a universal, is what constitutes the inner [of Things]." That is to say, a Thing's appearance is not all there is about said Thing. Appearance has been given form thanks to its totality, its conditions and its development. The phrase "more than meets the eye" is quite apt here. Hegel then goes on to talk of the "inner world" or the "supersensible beyond", the world that has been mediated through perception, and giving rise to the visible world on the other side.
This section stood out to me because there are many controversial subjects circulating in the online public consciousness, to which the concepts of totality and appearance have been neglected. Much of the rise of fascism and online culture can be attributed to the framing of the surface show as the entire substance of any one issue. It gives the idea that modern trends and social currents became the way they did overnight, and not due to underlying concrete conditions and many stages of development. It is the framing that historical and societal phenomena occur solely as the unconditional results of individual thought and happenstance, and not a clash between emerging gargantuan forces and even larger antiquated forces. Events last century act as the conditions for the growing trends of this century. But the ruling class deliberately frames history in their own fictitious way, and students of tomorrow conveniently never question it. Centering one part of the appearance of these events and banning discussion of their totality seems like a great way to justify propaganda, doesn't it?
One last thing I want to talk about is where Hegel talks about inverted properties between the visible world and the supersensible world, as well as the indifferent differences observed in the visible world. I will explain the latter first as it is more intuitive than the former.
If you have lived to adulthood and have observed anything long and hard enough, this idea will be easier to grasp. Hegel refers to things or motions observed in the visible world. Whether it is two things that appear to make the same motion or it is one thing that appears to not move at all. In both cases there exists a positive and negative change. In the latter movement, a positive and negative motion occur in unison, over the same amount of time, and at the same magnitude. The result is a motion that makes no motion. Internally, the positive and negative are the same, and an indifferent difference occurs. There exists a change, but the change is inobservable, and so we see no difference. In the case of two objects making the same motion, both objects have an observable difference individually, but as an isolated pair, there appears to be no difference. In each, there is a positive and negative motion, but either the positive or negative overpowers the other. We do not know which, unless we study them minutely. Initially, what appears to us is a measurable change in that Thing. All we observe is motion of that Thing. And if we observe both things, it appears to us as if they make the same motion, and they have the same process, conditions, and internal motions and contents. We assume all properties of the two objects are the same, but unless we minutely study them both, we cannot be certain. All we know are the immediately observable properties of the two objects and their motion. The internal properties and internal motions are below the surface, unless we study them, which grants our Understanding of the Thing, and our Consciousness access to cross over from the visible world into the inobservable supersensible world, from where all Things in the visible world spring forth.
It might seem counterintuitive for the properties of a Thing observed in the visible world to be inverted from that same Thing in the supersensible world, but so too is the concept of an indifferent difference being observed as different. We've talked about conditions in development, which does play a role here, but let's take a look at Essence and its manifestations. The Essence of a Thing originates in the supersensible world. It is the totality of that Thing and the grand total of all of its possibilities and pathways. The Essence of that Thing gives explanations of all phenomena of that Thing as it manifests in the visible world as observable notion and non-motion. All possibilities pertaining to the Essence are manifested through the Notion, and as they are studied (including the positive and negative internal motions, conditions, and development), they contribute to the Understanding of said Essence. So in observing the observable properties, they might seem on the surface antithetical to our existing Understanding of the Thing, but pertain to the Thing regardless. A property of a Thing being antithetical to our Understanding is a testament to our cognition of Things being an imperfect tool for perceiving the whole of the Essence of a Thing. In simple terms, what we observe of something that contradicts our understanding of said thing, is due to how we perceive things, or our incomplete understanding of said thing.
In more complex concepts, we can use the chess set as an analogy for understanding the duality between the visible world and the supersensible world. For someone who has no knowledge of chess, if one were to explain the game without displaying the pieces on the board, it would be impossible to have a full grasp of the game. But if that person were to observe one game of chess, they would discover that each piece makes certain moves. If they watched ten games, they would learn some of the more obscure movements of certain pieces. If they watched a hundred games, they would begin to learn patterns, opening strategies, etc. Everything they observed, even if initially a movement seemed contradictory in the goal of chess, would objectively fall within the Essence of chess. If the goal is checkmate, and taking the opponent's pieces and preventing your own pieces from being taken would aid you in that goal, for what reason would someone sacrifice their queen? This movement of sacrificing their queen seems antithetical to the ultimate goal of checkmating the opponent. But an experienced player, someone who has a greater Understanding of chess, who uses this tactic, has set up the game board in such a way that if the queen is taken, will guarantee checkmate the next turn. All of this is within the realm of chess, and within the supersensible realm of winning chess.
What I like about Phenomenology so far is the widespread applicability of Hegel's concepts. If you can take the time to understand what is written, you can use your personal experiences as a medium for the context. Hegel mostly speaks of abstracts, but does use concrete examples to establish a baseline. Phenomenology has absolutely helped me to finalize a lot of the abstract concepts bouncing around in my head. It hasn't definitively given me answers to real situations in the material world, and I don't expect it to either, but it has given me frameworks to analyze problems more dialectically, and that is enough to tickle my brain.