On Hegel's 'Science of Logic' : A Realm of Shadows - part fifty five.

'Ode to Psyche'

to John Keats?(1795 – 1821)

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung

?????????By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

?????????Even into thine own soft-conched ear:

Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see

?????????The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?

I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,

?????????And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,

Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side

?????????In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof

?????????Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran

???????????????A brooklet, scarce espied:

Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,

?????????Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,

They lay calm-breathing, on the bedded grass;

?????????Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;

?????????Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,

As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,

And ready still past kisses to outnumber

?????????At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:

???????????????The winged boy I knew;

But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?

???????????????His Psyche true!

O latest born and loveliest vision far

?????????Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!

Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,

?????????Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,

???????????????Nor altar heap'd with flowers;

Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan

???????????????Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

?????????From chain-swung censer teeming;

No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat

?????????Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,

?????????Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

?????????Holy the air, the water, and the fire;

Yet even in these days so far retir'd

?????????From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,

?????????Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd.

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

???????????????Upon the midnight hours;

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

?????????From swinged censer teeming;

Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

?????????Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane

?????????In some untrodden region of my mind,

Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,

?????????Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:

Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees

?????????Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;

And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,

?????????The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;

And in the midst of this wide quietness

A rosy sanctuary will I dress

???With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,

?????????With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,

With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,

?????????Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:

And there shall be for thee all soft delight

?????????That shadowy thought can win,

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

?????????To let the warm Love in!

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich?Hegel, (1770 - 1831). 'The Science of Logic'.

Cognition.

'Life is ... Universality drowned in the Specificity and Individuality which it also needs, whereas Cognition is Universality which has come out of specific-instantial immersion but which still drips with what it has come out of' as John N. Findlay puts it. The Dialectic Cognition is Idea's judgment of itself. It is Idea, but not yet Absolute Idea. Subjectivity has become Universal and objective. But the Universal has particularized itself. Notion now is split between subjective and objective Notion. It is part Idea and part not Idea. Cognition 'views its world as an other ... thereby misunderstanding the subjectivity of objectivity)' explains Herbert Marcuse. It is subjective to the extent that its predicate is a dead thing diverse from Life. Death and self-consciousness are thus connected as Charles Taylor interprets it. 'If I am to perceive myself, I must behold something determinate, limited, finite - outward manifestations separated and alien from me. If Cognition is subjective, it is not so in the ordinary sense of the human 'I'.' explains Maecuse. Rather, it is subjective by reason of its external starting point.

'In these determinations, in the difference of form of the definition, the concept finds itself; there it finds the reality that corresponds to it. But since the reflection of the moments of the concept into themselves which is singularity is not as yet contained in this reality, and since the object, in so far as it is in cognition, is consequently not as yet determined as subjective, it is cognition which, on the contrary, is subjective and has an external beginning; that is to say, because of its external beginning in a singular it is subjective. The content of the concept is therefore something given and contingent. The concrete concept itself is thus contingent in two respects: once because its content is contingent; and again because it is a matter of accident which content determinations, from the many qualities which the intended object has in external existence, are chosen for the concept as constituting its moments'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Its content is a datum and therefore contingent. It is still one-sided, possessing the Idea itself only as a sought-for beyond and an unattained goal.

'The absolute idea has shown itself to be the identity of the theoretical and the practical idea, each of which, of itself still one-sided, possesses the idea only as a sought-for beyond and unattained goal; each is therefore a synthesis of striving, each possessing aswell as not possessing the idea within it, passing over from one thought to the other without bringing the two together but remaining fixed in the contradiction of the two. The absolute idea, as the rational concept that in its reality only rejoins itself, is by virtue of this immediacy of its objective identity, on the one hand, a turning back to life; on the other hand, it has equally sublated this form of its immediacy and harbours the most extreme opposition within. The concept is not only soul, but free subjective concept that exists for itself and therefore has personality – the practical objective concept that is determined in and for itself and is as person impenetrable, atomic subjectivity – but which is not, just the same, exclusive singularity; it is rather explicitly universality and cognition, and in its other has its own objectivity for its subject matter. All the rest is error, confusion, opinion, striving, arbitrariness, and transitoriness; the absolute idea alone is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is all truth'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

It is a synthesis of endeavour and has, but equally has not, the Idea in it as John W. Burbidge has noted. Having sundered itself, subjective Notion now contemplates its other self, and what it contemplates is spirit or self-consciousness, determinations of the Idea where it has itself for object.

'Life is the immediate idea, or the idea as its still internally unrealized concept. In its judgment, the idea is cognition in general. The concept is for itself as concept inasmuch as it freely and concretely exists as abstract universality or a genus. As such, it is its pure self-identity that internally differentiates itself in such a way that the differentiated is not an objectivity but is rather equally liberated into subjectivity or into the form of simple self-equality; consequently, the object facing the concept is the concept itself. Its reality in general is the form of its existence; all depends on the determination of this form; on it rests the difference between what the concept is in itself, or as subjective, and what it is when immersed in objectivity, and then in the idea of life. In this last, the concept is indeed distinguished from its external reality and posited for itself; however, this being-for-itself which it now has, it has only as an identity that refers to itself as immersed in the objectivity subjugated to it, or to itself as indwelling, substantial form. The elevation of the concept above life consists in this, that its reality is the concept-form liberated into universality. Through this judgment the idea is doubled, into the subjective concept whose reality is the concept itself, and the objective concept which is as life. – Thought, spirit, self-consciousness, are determinations of the idea inasmuch as the latter has itself as the subject matter, and its existence, that is, the determinateness of its being, is its own difference from itself'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

'Psyche at Nature’s Mirror', 1893, Paul Thumann

Having sundered itself, subjective Notion now contemplates its other self, and what it contemplates is spirit or self-consciousness, determinations of the Idea where it has itself for object. Notion now has Determinate Being, but this Determinate Being is strictly a self-difference. Notion distinguishes itself from itself. Spirit, 'that which develops and determines itself' as Kathleen Dow Magnus explains is Notion elevated above Life. It is from the Idea of life that the Idea of spirit has issued.

'In the context of this logical exposition, it is from the idea of life that the idea of spirit has emerged, or what is the same thing, that has demonstrated itself to be the truth of the idea of life. As this result, the idea possesses its truth in and for itself, with which one may then also compare the empirical reality or the appearance of spirit to see how far it accords with it. We have seen regarding life that it is the idea, but at the same time it has shown itself not to be as yet the true presentation or the true mode of its existence. For in life, the reality of the idea is singularity; universality or the genus is the inwardness. The truth of life as absolute negative unity consists, therefore, in this: to sublate the abstract or, what is the same, the immediate singularity, and as identical to be self-identical, as genus, to be self-equal. Now this idea is spirit. – In this connection, we may further remark that spirit is here considered in the form that pertains to this idea as logical. For the idea also has other shapes which we may now mention in passing; in these it falls to the concrete sciences of spirit to consider it, namely as soul, consciousness, and spirit as such'.

- 'The Science of Logic

This formulation reflects the emergence of mind from nature, in Hegel's Encyclopaedia system.

Hegel equates spirit with soul. Marcuse calls these passages 'among the most brilliant of the entire Logic'. In previous thought, Hegel says, the metaphysics of spirit or soul involved determinations of substance, simplicity, immateriality.

'The metaphysics of the spirit or, as was more commonly said in the past, of the soul, revolved around the determinations of substance, simplicity, immateriality. These were determinations for which spirit was supposed to be the ground, but as a subject drawn from empirical consciousness, and the question then was which predicates agreed with the perceived facts. But this was a procedure that could go no further than the procedure of physics, which reduces the world of appearance to general laws and determinations of reflection, for it is spirit still as phenomenal that is taken as the foundation. In fact, in so far as scientific stringency goes, it also had to fall short of physics. For not only is spirit infinitely richer than nature; since its essence is constituted by the absolute unity in the concept of opposites, and in its appearance, therefore, and in its connection with externality, it exhibits contradiction at its most extreme form, it must be possible to adduce an experience in support of each of the opposite determinations of reflection, or, starting from experiences, to proceed by way of formal inference to the opposite determinations. Since the predicates immediately drawn from the appearances still belong to empirical psychology, so far as metaphysical consideration goes, all that is in truth left are the entirely inadequate determinations of reflection. – In his critique of rational psychology, Kant insists that, since this metaphysics is supposed to be a rational science, the least addition of anything drawn from perception to the universal representation of self-consciousness would alter it into an empirical science, thus compromising its rational purity and its independence from all experience. – Accordingly, all that is left on this view is the simple representation 'I', a representation entirely devoid of content, of which one cannot even say that it is a concept, but must say that it is a mere consciousness, one that accompanies every concept. Now, as Kant argues further, this 'I', or, if you prefer, this 'it' (the thing) that thinks, takes us no further than the representation of a transcendental subject of thoughts = x, a subject which is known only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and of which, taken in isolation, we cannot ever have the least concept. This 'I' has the associated inconvenience that, as Kant expresses it, in order to judge anything about it, we must every time already make use of it, for it is not so much one representation by which a particular object is distinguished, as it is rather a form of representation in general, in so far as representation can be said to be cognition. – Now the paralogism that rational psychology incurs, as Kant expresses it, consists in this: that modes of self-consciousness in thinking are converted into concepts of the understanding, as if they were the concepts of an object; that that 'I think' is taken to be a thinking being, a thing-in-itself; that in this way, because I am present in consciousness always as a subject, am indeed as a singular subject, identical in all the manifoldness of representation, and distinguishing myself from this manifoldness as external to it, the illegitimate inference is thereby drawn that I am a substance, and a qualitatively simple being on top of that, and a one, and a being that concretely exists independently of the things of space and time'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Ordinary thinking posited the existence of a soul and then searched for the predicates that would agree with the preconception. Such a procedure, Hegel complains, resembles Newtonian physics, which reduces the world of phenomena to general laws and reflective determinations since it too was based on spirit merely in its phenomenal aspect. The metaphysics of the soul was bound to fall short even of the scientific character of physics.

This metaphysic abstracts from empirical selfhood. As Immanuel Kant, (1724 - 1804), emphasized, the smallest empirical element destroys psychology as a science.

'The thinking subject is the object-matter of Psychology; the sum total of all phenomena (the world) is the object-matter of Cosmology; and the thing which contains the highest condition of the possibility of all that is cogitable (the being of all beings) is the object-matter of all Theology. Thus pure reason presents us with the idea of a transcendental doctrine of the soul (psychologia rationalis), of a transcendental science of the world (cosmologia rationalis), and finally of a transcendental doctrine of God (theologia transcendentalis). Understanding cannot originate even the outline of any of these sciences, even when connected with the highest logical use of reason, that is, all cogitable syllogisms—for the purpose of proceeding from one object (phenomenon) to all others, even to the utmost limits of the empirical synthesis. They are, on the contrary, pure and genuine products, or problems, of pure reason'.

......

'We now come to a conception which was not inserted in the general list of transcendental conceptions, and yet must be reckoned with them, but at the same time without in the least altering, or indicating a deficiency in that table. This is the conception, or, if the term is preferred, the judgement, 'I think'. But it is readily perceived that this thought is as it were the vehicle of all conceptions in general, and consequently of transcendental conceptions also, and that it is therefore regarded as a transcendental conception, although it can have no peculiar claim to be so ranked, inasmuch as its only use is to indicate that all thought is accompanied by consciousness. At the same time, pure as this conception is from empirical content (impressions of the senses), it enables us to distinguish two different kinds of objects. 'I', as thinking, am an object of the internal sense, and am called soul. That which is an object of the external senses is called body. Thus the expression, 'I', as a thinking being, designates the object-matter of psychology, which may be called “the rational doctrine of the soul,” inasmuch as in this science I desire to know nothing of the soul but what, independently of all experience (which determines me in concreto), may be concluded from this conception 'I', in so far as it appears in all thought'.

'Now, the rational doctrine of the soul is really an undertaking of this kind. For if the smallest empirical element of thought, if any particular perception of my internal state, were to be introduced among the grounds of cognition of this science, it would not be a rational, but an empirical doctrine of the soul. We have thus before us a pretended science, raised upon the single proposition, 'I think', whose foundation or want of foundation we may very properly, and agreeably with the nature of a transcendental philosophy, here examine. It ought not to be objected that in this proposition, which expresses the perception of one’s self, an internal experience is asserted, and that consequently the rational doctrine of the soul which is founded upon it, is not pure, but partly founded upon an empirical principle. For this internal perception is nothing more than the mere apperception, 'I think', which in fact renders all transcendental conceptions possible, in which we say, 'I think substance, cause, etc.' For internal experience in general and its possibility, or perception in general, and its relation to other perceptions, unless some particular distinction or determination thereof is empirically given, cannot be regarded as empirical cognition, but as cognition of the empirical, and belongs to the investigation of the possibility of every experience, which is certainly transcendental. The smallest object of experience (for example, only pleasure or pain), that should be included in the general representation of self-consciousness, would immediately change the rational into an empirical psychology'.

''I think' is therefore the only text of rational psychology, from which it must develop its whole system. It is manifest that this thought, when applied to an object (myself), can contain nothing but transcendental predicates thereof; because the least empirical predicate would destroy the purity of the science and its independence of all experience'.

- 'Critique of Pure Reason'

According to this instinct, nothing is left of psychology except the I, devoid of content. This I, for Kant, is less than a notion. It is a mere consciousness that accompanies every notion. By this 'I', or if you like, it (the thing) that thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendent subject of thoughts = x, which is cognized only through the thoughts which are its predicates. The phrase thing that thinks is a Lacanian favourite as Slavoj ?i?ek has noted. Of the Kantian I, taken in isolation, we can never have the least conception. Kant complains of the inconvenience of the I - we must already make use of it in forming a judgment about it. The I, for Kant, is not a single representation but is the form of representation in general. Empirical psychology therefore commits paralogism when it reifies (i.e., changes into a phenomenal thing) self-consciousness.

________________________________

'Psyché' (excerpt)

by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin?aka Molière, (1622 – 1673)

PLAINTES EN ITALIEN

Chantées par une femme désolée, et deux hommes affligés.

FEMME DéSOLéE

???Deh, piangete al pianto mio,

Sassi duri, antiche selve,

Lagrimate, fonti e belve

D’un bel voto il fato rio.

PREMIER HOMME AFFLIGé

????Ahi dolore !

SECOND HOMME AFFLIGé

???Ahi martire !

PREMIER HOMME AFFLIGé

???Cruda morte !

SECOND HOMME AFFLIGé

???Empia sorte !

TOUS TROIS

???Che condanni a morir tanta beltà.

????Cieli, stelle, ahi crudeltà.

SECOND HOMME AFFLIGé

???Com’ esser pu? fra voi, o Numi eterni,

Chi voglia estinta una beltà innocente ?

Ahi ! che tanto rigor, Cielo inclemente,

Vince di crudeltà gli stessi Inferni.

PREMIER HOMME AFFLIGé

????Nume fiero !

SECOND HOMME AFFLIGé

???Dio severo !

ENSEMBLE

???Perchè tanto rigor

Contro innocente cor ?

Ahi ! sentenza inudita,

????Dar morte a la beltà, ch’altrui dà vita.

FEMME DéSOLéE

???Ahi ch’indarno si tarda,

Non resiste a li Dei mortale affeto,

Alto impero ne sforza,

Ove commanda il Ciel, l’huom cede a forza.

????Ahi dolore ! etc. Come sopra.

[Ces plaintes sont entrecoupées et finies par une entrée de ballet de huit personnes affligées].

COMPLAINTS IN ITALIAN

Sung by a forlorn woman, and two afflicted men.

SORRY WOMAN

???Deh, cry to my cry,

Hard rocks, ancient forests,

Tears, fountains and beasts

Of a good vote the fate river.

FIRST AFFLICTED MAN

Oh pain!

SECOND AFFLICTED MAN

???Oh martyr!

FIRST AFFLICTED MAN

???Raw death!

SECOND AFFLICTED MAN

???Unholy luck!

ALL THREE

???What a death sentence so much beauty.

Heavens, stars, oh cruelty.

SECOND AFFLICTED MAN

???How can it be among you, O Eternal Names,

Who wants an innocent beauty extinct?

Ouch! that so much rigor, inclement sky,

He conquers the Hells themselves with cruelty.

FIRST AFFLICTED MAN

Proud name!

SECOND AFFLICTED MAN

???God is severe!

ASSEMBLY

???Why so much rigor

Against innocent heart?

Ouch! unpublished sentence,

Give death to beauty, which gives life to others.

SORRY WOMAN

???Oh how late it is,

He does not resist the Gods mortal affection,

High empire strives,

Where Heaven commands, man yields to force.

Oh pain! etc. As above.

[These complaints are interspersed and ended by a ballet entry of eight afflicted persons]

'Psyché aux enfers', 1865, Eugène Ernest Hillemacher

________________________________

The thing that thinks, for Kant, is to be taken as a thing-in-itself. As Hegel explains elsewhere paralogisms are a species of unsound syllogism, the especial vice of which consists in employing one and the same word in the two premises with a different meaning.

''Paralogisms' are basically defective syllogisms, whose defect consists, more precisely, in the fact that one and the same word is used in the two premises in diverse senses. According to Kant, the procedure of the older metaphysics in Rational Psychology is supposed to rest upon paralogisms of this kind; to be precise, merely empirical determinations of the soul are regarded by this psychology as pertaining to the soul in and for itself. For that matter, it is quite correct to say that predicates like 'simplicity', 'unalterableness', etc., cannot be applied to the soul. This is not for the reason that Kant gives, however (viz., that reason would thereby overstep the limit assigned to it), but because the abstract determinations of the understanding are not good enough for the soul, which is something quite other than the merely simple, unalterable, etc. For instance, the soul is certainly simple self-identity; but at the same time, because it is active, it distinguishes itself inwardly, whereas what is only simple, i. e., simple in an abstract way, is (for that very reason) also dead at the same time.-The fact that, through his polemic against the older metaphysics, Kant removed those predicates from the soul and the spirit must be regarded a great result, but the reason that he gives for doing this is quite wrong'.

- 'The Encyclopaedia Logic'

Since the I always occurs in consciousness of some object, empirical psychology unjustifiably infers that the I is a substance, and further a quantitatively simple being, and a one, and a something that has a real existence independently of the things of time and space. The pre-critical metaphysics of the soul is faulted for starting from observation and using external reflection to discover its non-empirical essence. But Kant's criticism of this practice is equally defective. Ignoring the speculative instincts of the Greeks. Hans-Georg Gadamer proclaims Hegel 'the most radical of the Greeks'. 'But Hegel's Christianity is gnostic or Averroistic, and in that sense, more Greek than the Greeks, to say nothing of Heidegger', claims Stanley Rosen bewilderingly.

Kant simply brought Humean scepticism to bear. Since the I could not be known empirically, it must be the unknowable thing-in-itself. As for the I's inconvenience - we cannot judge the I without using the I - Hegel finds it ridiculous to call an inconvenience this nature of self-consciousness, namely, that the I thinks itself, that the I cannot be thought without its being the I that thinks.

'I have cited this position in some detail because one can clearly recognize in it both the nature of the former metaphysics of the soul and also, more to the point, of the Critique that put an end to it. – The former was intent on determining the abstract essence of the soul; it went about this starting from observation, and then converting the latter’s empirical generalizations, and the determination of purely external reflection attaching to the singularity of the actual, into the form of the determinations of essence just cited. – What Kant generally has in mind here is the state of the metaphysics of his time which, as a rule, stayed at these one-sided determinations with no hint of dialectic; he neither paid attention to, nor examined, the genuinely speculative ideas of older philosophers on the concept of spirit. In his critique of those determinations he then simply abided by the Humean style of scepticism; that is to say, he fixes on how the 'I' appears in self-consciousness, but from this 'I', since it is its essence (the thing in itself ) that we want to cognize, he removes everything empirical; nothing then remains but this appearance of the 'I think' that accompanies all representations and of which we do not have the slightest concept. – It must of course be conceded that, as long as we are not engaged in comprehending but confine ourselves to a simple, fixed representation or to a name, we do not have the slightest concept of the 'I', or of anything whatever, not even of the concept itself. – Peculiar indeed is the thought (if one can call it a thought at all) that I must make use of the 'I' in order to judge the 'I'. The 'I' that makes use of self-consciousness as a means in order to judge: this is indeed an x of which, and also of the relation involved in this 'making use', we cannot possibly have the slightest concept. But surely it is laughable to label the nature of this self-consciousness, namely that the 'I' thinks itself, that the 'I' cannot be thought without the 'I' thinking it, an awkwardness and, as if it were a fallacy, a circle. The awkwardness, the circle, is in fact the relation by which the eternal nature of self-consciousness and of the concept is revealed in immediate, empirical self-consciousness – is revealed because self-consciousness is precisely the existent and therefore empirically perceivable pure concept; because it is the absolute self-reference that, as parting judgment, makes itself into an intended object and consists in simply making itself thereby into a circle. – This is an awkwardness that a stone does not have. When it is a matter of thinking or judging, the stone does not stand in its own way; it is dispensed from the burden of making use of itself for the task; something else outside it must shoulder that effort.

This so-called inconvenience is the very nature of self-consciousness and of spirit, each of which makes itself its own object.

If self-consciousness perceives itself, the I is empirically perceptible after all, even if not sensuous. Notion is absolute relation-to-self. Through a separating judgement, it makes itself its own object and is solely this process whereby it makes itself a circle.

'The defect, which these surely barbarous notions place in the fact that in thinking the 'I' the latter cannot be left out as a subject, then also appears the other way around, in that the 'I' occurs only as the subject of consciousness, or in that I can use myself only as a subject, and no intuition is available by which the 'I' would be given as an object; but the concept of a thing capable of existence only as a subject does not as yet carry any objective reality with it. – Now if external intuition as determined in time and space is required for objectivity, and it is this objectivity that is missed, it is then clear that by objectivity is meant only sensuous reality. But to have risen above such a reality is precisely the condition of thinking and of truth. Of course, if the 'I' is not grasped conceptually but is taken as a mere representation, in the way we talk about it in everyday consciousness, then it is an abstract self-determination, and not the self-reference that has itself for its subject matter. Then it is only one of the extremes, a one-sided subject without its objectivity; or else just an object without subjectivity, which it would be were it not for the awkwardness just touched upon, namely that the thinking subject will not be left out of the 'I' as object. But as a matter of fact this awkwardness is already found in the other determination, that of the 'I' as subject; the 'I' does think something, whether itself or something else. This inseparability of the two forms in which the 'I' opposes itself to itself belongs to the most intimate nature of its concept and of the concept as such; it is precisely what Kant wants to keep away in order to retain what is only a representation that does not internally differentiate itself and consequently, of course, is void of concept. Now this kind of conceptual void may well oppose itself to the abstract determinations of reflection or to the categories of the previous metaphysics, for in one-sidedness it stands at the same level with them, though these are in fact on a higher level of thought; but it appears all the more lame and empty when compared with the profounder ideas of ancient philosophy concerning the concept of the soul or of thinking, as for instance the truly speculative ideas of Aristotle. If the Kantian philosophy subjected the categories of reflection to critical investigation, all the more should it have investigated the abstraction of the empty 'I' that he retained, the supposed idea of the thing-in-itself. The experience of the awkwardness complained of is itself the empirical fact in which the untruth of that abstraction finds expression'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Kant barbarously places the defect in the I because it is the subject which must make itself its own object. But the complaint may be made from the other side. What a defect it is that the subject has no predicate that we can intuit! If objectivity means intuitable in time and space - i.e., sensuous reality - then the I is not objective. But to have risen above sensual reality is the condition of thinking and of truth. Notion must manifest itself and render itself known. In ordinary parlance, the I is simple, not the self-relation that has itself for object. Abstracted in this way, the I is one side of the self-relation, with no objectivity, or perhaps an object without subjectivity, were it not for the inconvenience alluded to, that the thinking subject cannot be eliminated from the I as object. The inconvenience is therefore on both sides of the abstract concept of the I. The I uses itself to think itself - Kant's inconvenience. Suppose, however, that the I was merely the subject. It must think something, whether it be itself or something else. It therefore must have a predicate in actual thoughts. In fact, the I as subject and as object cannot be separated.

It is precisely this that Kant wants to stave off in order to retain the mere general idea, which does not inwardly differentiate itself and therefore, of course, lacks the Notion. A notionless conception can indeed oppose itself to the previous metaphysics of the simple soul. But it is just as defectively simple as the metaphysics it opposes, Hegel says. The inconvenience Kant complains of is the very empirical fact that proves the untruth of the I as non-notional thing-in-itself.

'Psyche', Antonín Hude?ek,?(1872 – 1941)

Hegel thinks that Kant's criticism of Moses Mendelssohn, (1729 – 1786), is notional, contrary to his other attitudes toward the I.

'Refutation of the Argument of Mendelssohn for the Substantiality or Permanence of the Soul. This acute philosopher easily perceived the insufficiency of the common argument which attempts to prove that the soul—it being granted that it is a simple being—cannot perish by dissolution or decomposition; he saw it is not impossible for it to cease to be by extinction, or disappearance. He endeavoured to prove in his Phaedo, that the soul cannot be annihilated, by showing that a simple being cannot cease to exist. Inasmuch as, he said, a simple existence cannot diminish, nor gradually lose portions of its being, and thus be by degrees reduced to nothing (for it possesses no parts, and therefore no multiplicity), between the moment in which it is, and the moment in which it is not, no time can be discovered—which is impossible. But this philosopher did not consider that, granting the soul to possess this simple nature, which contains no parts external to each other and consequently no extensive quantity, we cannot refuse to it any less than to any other being, intensive quantity, that is, a degree of reality in regard to all its faculties, nay, to all that constitutes its existence. But this degree of reality can become less and less through an infinite series of smaller degrees. It follows, therefore, that this supposed substance—this thing, the permanence of which is not assured in any other way, may, if not by decomposition, by gradual loss (remissio) of its powers (consequently by elanguescence, if I may employ this expression), be changed into nothing. For consciousness itself has always a degree, which may be lessened.?Consequently the faculty of being conscious may be diminished; and so with all other faculties. The permanence of the soul, therefore, as an object of the internal sense, remains undemonstrated, nay, even indemonstrable. Its permanence in life is evident, per se, inasmuch as the thinking being (as man) is to itself, at the same time, an object of the external senses. But this does not authorize the rational psychologist to affirm, from mere conceptions, its permanence beyond life'.

- 'Critique of Pure Reason'

Mendelssohn tried to prove the persistence of the soul by reference to its simplicity. A simple thing, Mendelssohn argued, is incapable of becoming something other. Simplicity served Mendelssohn as the form of general abstraction of the I. Unlike Hegel, Mendelssohn did not suppose that being was finite and instantly transformed into nonbeing. Indeed, soul does persist, but only because it is concrete, not simple. The concrete soul - i.e., the Notion - cannot therefore pass into that other as though it altered itself in it for the very reason that the other to which it is determined is the Notion itself, so that in this transition it only come to itself.

'The Kantian critique of rational psychology only refers to Mendelssohn’s proof of the persistence of the soul, and I now also cite its refutation of that proof because of the oddness of what it adduces against it. Mendelssohn’s proof is based on the simplicity of the soul, by virtue of which it is supposed to be incapable of alteration in time, of transition into an other. Qualitative simplicity is in general the form of abstraction earlier considered; as qualitative determinateness, it was investigated in the sphere of being and it was then proved that the qualitative, which is as such abstractly self-referring determinateness, is precisely for that reason dialectical, mere transition into an other. In the case of the concept, however, it was shown that, when considered in connection with persistence, indestructibility, imperishableness, it is that which exists for itself, which is eternal, just because it is not abstract but concrete simplicity – because it is not a determinateness that refers to itself abstractly but is the unity of itself and its other, and it cannot therefore pass over into this other as if it thereby altered in it; it cannot precisely because it is itself the other, the determinateness, and hence in this passing over it only comes to itself. – Now the Kantian critique opposes to this qualitative determination of the unity of the concept a quantitative one. As it says, although the soul is not a manifold of reciprocally external parts and contains no extensive magnitude, yet consciousness has a degree, and the soul, like every concretely existing being, is an intensive magnitude; with this magnitude, however, there is posited the possibility of a transition into nothing through gradual vanishing. – Now what is this refutation but the application to spirit of a category of being, of intensive magnitude – a determination that has no truth in itself but on the contrary is sublated in the concept'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Even metaphysics stuck with the fixity of the Understanding aspires to cognize truth. Kant's victory over such metaphysics consists of abolishing the very possibility of truth, consigning it to the unknowable thing-in-itself. In defeating metaphysics in this way, Kant omits altogether to raise the one question of interest, whether [the I] possesses truth in and for itself. But to cling to phenomena and the mere conceptions given in everyday consciousness is to renounce the Notion and philosophy. Anything rising above this is stigmatized in the Kantian criticism as something high-flown to which reason is in no way entitled.

'Metaphysics – even one that restricted itself to the fixed concepts of the understanding without rising to speculation, to the nature of the concept and of the idea – did have for its aim the cognition of truth; it did probe its subject matter to ascertain whether they were something true or not, whether substances or phenomena. The triumph of the Kantian critique over this metaphysics consists, on the contrary, in side-lining any investigation that would have truth for its aim and this aim itself; it simply does not pose the one question which is of interest, namely whether a determinate subject, in this case the abstract 'I' of representation, has truth in and for itself. But to stay at appearances and at the mere representations of ordinary consciousness is to give up on the concept and on philosophy. Anything beyond that is branded by the Kantian critique as high-flown, something to which reason has no claim. As a matter of fact, the concept does fly high, rising above what has no concept, and the immediate justification for going beyond it is, for one thing, the concept itself, and, for another, on the negative side, the untruth of appearance and of representation, and also of such abstractions as the thing-in-itself and the said 'I' which is not supposed to be an object to itself'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

In his criticism, Kant agrees with Mendelssohn that the soul does not have juxtaposed parts, but soul has degree. In Kant's discourse, degree postulates the possibility of transition into nothing by a gradual passing away. What Kant has illegitimately done, Hegel remarks, is to impose on spirit a category of being. Notion does go beyond notionless phenomena. The justification for this transcendence? Notion has already justified itself, throughout the Logic. Kant himself has portrayed phenomena as untrue. Their untruth necessarily drives the inquiry beyond phenomena.

Cognition's duality. Up to now, all the chapters of the Logic have been triadic, with the exception of Judgement and the opening third of Syllogism, which were tetradic. Ultimately the Syllogism of Existence can be interpreted to be triadic, since Mathematical Syllogism was simply a restatement of the truth of the third figure of the Syllogism of Existence. Tetrachotomy in Judgement was justified because the Notion, in re-establishing its own reality, had to pass through the stages of Being, the double stage of Essence, and the final stage of Notion. Cognition has only two portions - the True and the Good. Reconciliation in Absolute Idea is left for the final chapter. But in fact, Absolute Idea should be understood as third to the True and the Good. Properly speaking, chapter 27 should not be a chapter at all but simply the end of chapter 26. 'There is no further transition to a higher level but only a development which is at the same time a recollection of what has been accomplished' says Stanley Rosen. Chapter 27 has no explicit subdivisions within it, though, as we shall see, the moves of the Understanding, Dialectical Reason, and Speculative Reason make their final appearance here. In effect, the true chapter 27 should be all the chapters taken together.

Oto jestem sama - Here I am alone

Some further thoughts on Knowledge, Cognition and Certainty.

No single German word corresponds in range to know, but a variety of words overlap it: 1. Wissen is to know, not be ignorant of, close to the French savoir. It can be followed by a noun (e.g. the right way), of (von), about (um), how to, or a that-clause (dass). The verbal noun (das) Wissen (knowledge, learning) is used in set phrases (e.g. to the best of my knowledge), for knowledge of something or in a particular field, and for knowledge in general (e.g. Knowledge is power). It is used by Hegel for Absolute knowledge. It generates Wissenschaft (Science). 2. The verb kennen (like the French conna?tre) is to know, be familiar with: in I do not know her, but I know about her, kennen translates the first know, wissen the second. The noun Kenntnis is cognizance, awareness of a particular fact. The plural, Kenntnisse, is items of knowledge. (Wissen, by contrast, has no plural and does not suggest items of knowledge.) 3. The verb erkennen means (a) to know again, recognize something previously encountered; (b) to recognize, realize, come to know, see, e.g. a truth, one's error or that one was mistaken; (c) to give a judgment or verdict, e.g. to find him guilty, condemn him to death. The most important sense in Hegel is (b): he contrasts what is merely bekannt (familiar, well-known) with what is erkannt (systematically cognized, understood, known): e.g. before one does logic, one's language and particular words and constructions are bekannt, afterwards they are also erkannt. (Die) Erkenntnis is philosophical or scientific knowledge. The plural, Erkenntnisse, means items of knowledge, cognitions'. Translators often distinguish cognition(s) (Erkenntnis (se)) from knowledge (Wissen). The verbal noun (das) Erkennen (knowing, cognizing) is also common.

4. Einsehen (literally to see into, look into) is close to erkennen in sense (b): to come to realize, understand, know a thing or that something is so. Hegel often uses the noun Einsicht (insight): in the 'Phenomenology of Spirit' it contrasts with faith (Glaube) and is associated with the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Unlike Glaube, it is conceptual, rational and individual; to have insight into things contrasts with simply accepting them. Hence, although one may accept, e.g., a religion into which one has insight, insight has tended to conflict with religion. Wissen is cognate with gewiss (certain) and Gewissheit (certainty), in both an objective (That's certain) and a subjective (I am certain of it) sense. In Hegel the words usually have an subjective sense, and he constantly stresses that certainty does not guarantee truth in either the usual or Hegel's sense: sensory certainty is contrasted with the truth apprehended by perception. (Sometimes this feature of gewiss is transferred to wissen, so that a person may 'know' for certain what is false.) Certainty in Hegel is immediate rather than derived, and this is one reason why truth eludes it. It may be involved in religious faith. Self-certainty (Selbstgewissheit), Cartesian self-awareness, but also, in Hegel, self-assuredness, is a primitive version of self-consciousness. Gewissen (conscience) also derives from wissen. Originally Gewissen meant consciousness (as does the word for conscience in many European languages). But in the Phenomenology and 'Philosophy of Right' Hegel stresses the connection of conscience with (self-)certainty, and its consequent fallibility.

Wissen was originally a past tense, meaning to have perceived. Hence Wissen can be immediate, involving, unlike Erkennen, no process of coming to know. Thus Hegel often contrasts Wissen unfavourably with Erkennen, as a direct or immediate knowledge that cannot grasp concrete interrelations. (In philosophical cognition, the steps by which we arrive at a result are involved in the structure of the result.) He cites the dictum we wissen that God is, but we do not erkennen God viz. his actual concrete nature.

'.. even the mind mediated by the negation of soul and of consciousness has itself, initially, still the form of immediacy and consequently the semblance of being external to itself, of relating, like consciousness, to the rational as to a being outside it, only found, not mediated by mind. But by sublation of these two antecedent main stages of development, of these presuppositions made by the mind itself, mind has already shown itself to us as that which mediates itself with itself, as that which withdraws from its Other into itself, as unity of the subjective and the objective. Consequently, the activity of mind that has come to itself, that implicitly already contains the object within itself as a sublated object, necessarily proceeds also to sublate that semblance of the immediacy of itself and of its object, the form of merely finding the object.-Accordingly intelligence's activity initially certainly appears as a formal, unfulfilled activity, and the mind consequently appears as unknowing; and the very first thing to be done is to remove this unknowingness. To this end intelligence fills itself with the object immediately given to it, which, precisely on account of its immediacy, is burdened with all the contingency, nullity and untruth of external reality. But intelligence, far from confining itself to merely accepting the immediately presented content of objects, purifies the object of that in it which shows itself to be purely external, to be contingent and null. Thus whereas, as we have seen, it seems to consciousness that its continuing cultivation starts from the alteration, occurring for itself, of the determinations of its object, intelligence, by contrast, is posited as that form of mind in which the mind itself alters the object and by the development of it also develops itself to truth. Intelligence, in altering the object from external to internal, internalizes itself. These two, the internalizing of the object and the recollection of the mind, are one and the same thing. That of which the mind has a rational knowledge becomes a rational content just in virtue of its being known in a rational way. Thus intelligence removes the form of contingency from the object, grasps its rational nature and so posits it as subjective; and, conversely, in this way it at the same time cultivates subjectivity into the form of objective rationality. Thus what is at first abstract, formal knowledge becomes concrete knowledge, filled with genuine content, hence objective knowledge. When intelligence attains this goal set for it by its concept, it is in truth what initially it only ought to be, namely, cognition. Cognition must surely be distinguished from mere knowledge. For even consciousness is knowledge. But free mind does not content itself with simple knowledge; it wants to cognize, i.e., it wants not only to know that an object is, and what it is both overall and in its contingent, external determinations; it wants to know what the object's determinate, substantial nature consists in. This distinction between knowing and cognition is something entirely familiar to educated thinking. Thus it is said, for example, that though we know that God is, cognition of him is beyond us. The sense of this assertion is that while we surely have an indeterminate representation of the abstract essence of God, we are supposed, by contrast, to be incapable of comprehending his determinate, concrete nature. Those who speak in this way may, as regards their own person, be perfectly right. For although even that theology which declares God to be uncognizeable goes to a great deal of trouble- exegetically, critically, and historically-over God and in this way swells up into a capacious science, yet it only gets as far as a knowledge of externals, and by contrast it excretes the substantial content of its object as something indigestible for its feeble mind and accordingly forgoes cognition of God, since, as we have said, knowledge of external determinacies does not suffice for cognition, for which a grasp of the substantial determinacy of the object is necessary. Such a science as the one just mentioned occupies the standpoint of consciousness, not of genuine intelligence, which used to be called, rightly, the cognitive faculty as well, although the expression faculty has the inappropriate meaning of a mere possibility'.

- 'Philosophy of Mind'

Again, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's (1743 – 1819) doctrine that we immediately know God's existence, etc., is a doctrine of immediate Wissen; Erkennen, by contrast, is inevitably mediated.

'In the Critical Philosophy, thinking is interpreted as being subjective, and its ultimate, un surpassable determination is abstract universality, or formal identity; thus, thinking is set in opposition to the truth, which is inwardly concrete universality. In this highest determination of thinking, which is reason, the categories are left out of account.-From the opposed standpoint thinking is interpreted as an activity of the particular, and in that way, too, it is declared to be incapable of grasping truth'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

But Wissen is not always compared unfavourably to Erkennen: e.g. 'absolute knowledge' . In the Phenomenology is das absolutes Wissen. There are two reasons for this: (1) Wissen is drawn towards the invariably favourable Wissenschaft (Science), and away from the usually pejorative Gewissheit. (2) Since the result of cognition sublates the steps by which we reached it, the result is immediate in a higher sense, and is thus Wissen as much as Erkennen. Hegel examines Erkennen (but not Wissen), viz. the finite cognition of the natural and mathematical sciences, in the Logic: cognition is either analytic or synthetic. These notions (which have no close connection with analytic and synthetic judgement) derive from a Greek mathematician, Pappus: analysis (or the regressive method) and synthesis (the progressive method) are two procedures used, often complementarily, in geometry. If we have a problem to solve or a theorem whose truth-value is unknown, analysis starts by assuming the problem solved or the truth of the theorem and then derives consequences from this assumption. We assume, e.g., the truth of theorem A, then derive B from A, and C from B, until we reach a theorem, say M, whose truth-value is already known. If M is false, then A is now known to be false. If M is true, then synthesis works back from M (deductively in mathematics, but, e.g., inductively in the natural sciences) to prove the truth of A. Analysis thus proceeds from the unknown to the known, synthesis from the known to the (hitherto) unknown. Hegel (unlike Kant) did not see how cognition could proceed from the unknown to the known and he thereby associates analysis with mathematics in general, since it splits things up into quantities that are externally related in the Logic with the extraction of universal laws, forces and genera from concrete phenomena, and with the analysis of a substance into its chemical constituents.

'Since finite cognition presupposes the distinct as something found already in being and standing over and against it-the manifold facts of external nature or of consciousness-it has (1) formal identity or the abstraction of universality as the form of its activity. This activity consists therefore in dissolving the concrete that is given, isolating its distinctions and bestowing the form of abstract universality upon them; in other words, it consists in leaving the concrete as ground and making a concrete universal-the genus, or force and law-stand out through abstraction from the particularities that seem to be inessential. This is the analytical method. Addition. We usually speak of the 'analytic' and 'synthetic' methods as if it were merely a matter of our own choice whether we follow the one or the other. But this is not at all the case; on the contrary, which of the two above-mentioned methods resulting from the Concept of finite cognition is to be applied depends on the form of the ob-jects themselves that cognition aims at. At first, cognition is analytic; the object assumes for it the shape of something isolated, and the activity of analytical cognition is directed toward tracing the singular that lies before it back to a universal. Here, thinking has the significance only of abstraction or of formal identity. This is the standpoint of Locke and of all empiricists. Many say that cognition cannot go any further than this at all: to break up the given concrete ob-jects into their abstract elements and then contemplate these in their state of isolation from one another. It is apparent at once, however, that this stands things on their heads, and that any cognition that wants to take things as they are falls into contradiction with itself when it takes this road. For example, a chemist puts a piece of meat into his retort, tortures it in many ways, and then says that he has found that it consists of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, etc. But these abstract materials are no longer meat. And we have the same situation when the empirical psychologist breaks an action up into the various aspects which it presents to observation, and then holds fast to them in their separation from one another. The ob-ject that is treated analytically is regarded like an onion, so to speak, from which people strip one skin after another'.

- 'The Encyclopaedia Logic'

His much longer account of synthesis deals with definition, classification and the theorem. Hegel believes that his own cognitive procedure is both analytic and synthetic. Which it is: he does not simply synthesize, e.g., the logical Idea or Right into a single whole or simply analyse them into their constituent elements, but presents them as unified, but articulated Whole. Pappus would demur however: Hegel never (officially at least) proceeds by working back from his intended result to what is required in order to reach it, but always by advancing from what is already known towards an as yet unknown result. (In the Phenomenology, we philosophers already occupy the standpoint of absolute knowledge, but we only observe, and do not assist, the development of Consciousness to this standpoint.) But the circularity of his system implies that progress is also regress towards the beginning: the conditions sublated in the result eventually re-emerge from it, and are fully understood only when the cycle is complete. There is thus another sense in which Hegel's cognition is both analytic and synthetic.

Hegel and his contemporaries were vexed by the threat of scepticism to both Erkennen and Wissen. He argued, against what he took to be Kant's view, that the problem cannot be met by first examining cognition, since if our cognitive powers are good enough for that task, they are good enough for direct application to the world: Kant's procedure is like trying to learn to swim without entering the water (the Phenomenology, Introduction). But Hegel did not disdain epistemology: Not only the Phenomenology(with its examination not of the world, but of forms of consciousness), but his whole system, is shaped in part as a response to scepticism. This response involves the reshaping or re-evaluation of several other concepts, besides that of knowledge: certainty, truth, proof, immediate, etc.

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'La toilette de Psyché', Ambroise Dubois, (1543 - 1614/15)

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'Comus' (excerpt)

by John Milton, (1608 – 1674)

Flowers of more mingled hue

Than her purfled scarf can shew,

And drenches with Elysian dew

(List, mortals, if your ears be true)

Beds of hyacinth and roses,

Where young Adonis oft reposes,

Waxing well of his deep wound,

In slumber soft, and on the ground

Sadly sits the Assyrian queen.

But far above, in spangled sheen,

Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced

Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced

After her wandering labours long,

Till free consent the gods among

Make her his eternal bride,

And from her fair unspotted side

Two blissful twins are to be born,

Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run

Quickly to the green earth’s end,

Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend,

And from thence can soar as soon

To the corners of the moon.

Mortals, that would follow me,

Love Virtue; she alone is free.

She can teach ye how to climb

Higher than the sphery chime;

Or, if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

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Dedicated to my lovely One. My soulmate. ????

'As'

As around the sun the earth knows she's revolving

And the rosebuds know to bloom in early may

Just as hate knows love's the cure

You can rest your mind assure

That I'll be loving you always

As now can't reveal the mystery of tomorrow

But in passing will grow older every day

Just as all that's born is new

You know what I say is true

That I'll be loving you always

Always

(Until the ocean covers every mountain high)

Always

(Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea)

Always

(Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream)

Did you know that true love asks for nothing

No no her acceptance is the way we pay

Did you know that life has given love a guarantee

To last through forever and another day

Just as time knew to move on since the beginning

And the seasons know exactly when to change

Just as kindness knows no shame

Know through all your joy and pain

That I'll be loving you always

As today I know I'm living

But tomorrow could make me the past

But that I mustn't fear

For I'll know deep in my mind

The love of me I've left behind

'Cause I'll be loving you always

Always

(Until the trees and seas just up and fly away)

Always

(Until the day that eight times eight times eight is four)

Always

(Until the day that is the day that are no more)

Did you know you're loved by somebody

(Until the day the earth starts turnin' right to left)

Always

(Until the earth just for the sun denies itself)

I'll be lovin' you forever

(Until dear mother nature says her work is through)

Always

(Until the day that you are me and I am you)

Always

(Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky

Until the ocean severs every mountain high)

Always mm mm

We all know sometimes life hates and troubles

Can make you wish you were born in another time and space

But you can bet your lifetimes that and twice it's double

That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed

So make sure when you say you're in it, but not of it

You're not helpin' to make this earth

A place sometimes called hell

Change your words into truths

And then change that truth into love

And maybe our children's grandchildren

And their great grandchildren will tell

I'll be loving you until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky

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Coming up next:

The Idea of the True.

To be continued ...