**GERMAN 115**

# TUES 2 FEB 2021

## *Phenomenology of Spirit*

### Stoic

I'm a pure power of thinking. Individualistic relativism except the overarching tenet that only what I think matters.

s.197

- I'm thinking only to me.

s.198 (Hegel's definition of stoicism)

> Its principle is that consciousness is a being that *thinks*, and that consciousness holds something to be essentially important, or true and good only in so far as it *thinks* it to be such.

s.199

> As lord, it does not have its truth in the bondsman, nor as bondsman is its truth in the lord's will and in his service; on the contrary, whether on the throne or in chains,in the utter dependence of its individual existence, its aim is to be free, and to maintain that lifeless indifference which steadfastly withdraws from the bustle of existence, alike from being active as passive, into the simple essentiality of thought.

- Epictetus: I just like to think by myself, that's when I'm free.

> Self-will is the freedom which entrenches itself in some particularity and is still in bondage ...

- Self-will: the freedom not to change.

> ... while Stoicism is the freedom which always comes directly out of bondage and returns into the pure universality of thought.

- Against criticism on absence of bondsmen's revolt: Hegel isn't talking about human oppression necessarily, but about what should go on next.

The thoughts that the bondsmen think about comes from the world. s.200

> But here the Notion as an abstraction cuts itself off from the multiplicity of things, and thus has no content in its own self but one that is given to it.

> Consciousness does indeed destroy the content as an alien immediacy [Sein] when it thinks it; but the Notion is a determinate Notion, and this determinateness of the Notion is the alien element which it has within it.

- Even though the thoughts are my thoughts, but if there's no horse I can't think about it.

The Stoic questions even the existence of the outside world and now he becomes a skeptic.

### skeptic

s.202

> Scepticism is the realization of that, of which Stoicism was only the Notion ...

> ... the [abstract] thought becomes the concrete thinking which annihilates the being of the world in all its manifold determinateness, and the negativity of free self-consciousness comes to know itself in the many and varied forms of life as a real negativity.

- Modern skepticism does not doubt everything, e.g. Descartes' *cogito* to him is undoubtable. Hegel despises.

But how do you know that you know nothing? The ancient skeptic simply waits for somebody to say something and then refutes it. It is reactionary, or parasitic. Hegel calls such activity *dialectic*.

> Dialectic as a negative movement, just as it immediately is, at first appears to consciousness as something which has it at its mercy, and which does not have its source in consciousness itself. As Scepticism, on the other hand, it is a moment of self-consciousness, to which it does not happen that its truth and reality vanish without its knowing how, but which, in the certainty of its freedom, makes this 'other' which claims to be real, vanish.

- Anything that comes from outside does not matter because it might not even be there.

> What vanishes is the determinate element, or the moment of difference, which, whatev~ritsmode of being and whateverits source, sets itself up as something fixed and immutable.

- This is where skepticism dissolves.

> It contains no permanent element, and must vanish before thought, because the 'different' is just this, not to be in possession of itself, but to have its essential being only in an other.

At this stage, **dialectic** is refutation. If you make a claim, I'll show you it is invalid.

s.205

> [C]onsciousness itself is the absolute dialectical unrest, this medley of sensuous and intellectual representations whose differences coincide, and whose identity is equally again dissolved, for it is itself determinateness as contrasted with the non-identical.

- If I think justice is good, I bring them together. The stoic dissolves it. But if I say justice is not good, the stoic questions it and bring them together.

> But it is just in this process that this consciousness, instead ofbeing self-identical, is in fact nothing but a purely casual, confused medley, the dizziness of a perpetually self-engendered disorder.

- Whatever you bring up, I refuse.

Skeptic: I'm better than the Stoic because he thinks stuff from outside. But the skeptic must make his claim from outside.

> [W]hile it takes itselfin this way to be a single and separate, contingent and, in fact, animal life, and a lost self-consciousness, it also, on the contrary, converts itself again into a consciousness that is universal and self-identical.

- I'm always gonna do the same thing (i.e. to refute) no matter the circumstances. It then realizes itself as the pure (dialectical) power of refuting

==Bondsman $\to$ Stoic $\to$ Overall dialectic power of refuting==

> This consciousness is
> therefore the unconscious, thoughtless rambling which passes
> back and forth from the one extreme of self.-identical self-consciousness to the other extreme of the contingent consciousness
> thatis hoth bewildered and bewildering. It does not itself bring
> these two thoughts of itself together. At one time it recognizes
> that its freedom lies in rising above all the confusion and contingency of existence ...

- The skeptic attempts to achieve serenity.

> ... and at another time equally admits to a
> relapse into occupying itselfwith what is unessential.

- But he cannot be serene and always needs to refute. This Hegel considers is a contradiction.

> Point out likeness or identity to it, and it
> will point out unlikeness or non-identity; and when it is now
> confronted with what it has just asserted, it turns round and points out likeness or identity.

s.206

> Scepticism's lack of thought
> about itself must vanish, because it is in fact one consciousness
> which contains within itself these two modes. This new form
> is, therefore, one which knows that it is the dual consciousness
> ofitself, as self-liberating, unchangeable, and self..identical, and
> as se1f~bewildering and self-perverting, and it is the awareness
> of this self~contradictory nature of itself.

- Consciousness is contradictory, but it's always refuting, doing that one thing. It gets bored refuting itself and coming to nothing. This awareness is in dual form: 1) identical to itself; 2) always changing from itself:

> [T]he duplication which formerly was divided between two individuals, the lord and the bondsman, is now lodged in one. ... the *Unhappy Consciousness* is the consciousness of self as a dual-natured, merely contradictory being.

The pure unchangeable is not dialectical.

Has inspired Sartre: *pour-soi*

s.209

> [W]e have a struggle against an enemy, to
> vanquish whom is really to suffer defeat, where victory in one
> consciousness is really lost in its opposite.

How does consciousness (I now am a skeptic, identify as a changing consciousness) aware of that?

> The Unchangeable that enters
> into consciousness is through this very fact at the same time
> affected by individuality, and is only present with the latter; individuality, instead of.having been extinguished in the consciousness of the Unchangeable, only continues to arise" therefrom.

| Winning battler | Losing battler |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------- |
| Lord | Bondsmen |
| Pure power of thought | things thought |
| Pure power of refutation | thoughts refuted |
| the Unchangeable | the miserable consciousness |

s.210

> there exist for consciousness three different ways in which individuality is linked with the Unchangeable. Firstly, it again
> appears to itselfas opposed to the Unchangeable, and is thrown back to the beginning of the strugg1e which is throughout the element in which the whole relationshipsubsists. Secondly, consciousness learns that individuality belongs to the Unchangeable itself, so that it assumes the form ofindividuaIity into which the entire mode of existence passes. Thirdly, it finds its own self as this particular individual in the Unchangeable.

1. I wish but fail to unite with it, so it must repel me.
2. An individual that is like but is not me.
3. Consciousness becomes spirit and enjoys finding itself therein. **Reconciliation**

s.215

> At first, then, this conscim.isness being taken as pure consciousness, the incarnate Unchangeable when it is an object for
> pure consciousnesScseems to be present in its own proper nature. But this, its own proper nature, has not yet come into existence ... In order that it should appear
> in consciousness in its own ptopernature, this would certainly
> have to corne about from its side.

- Consciousness realizes the Unchangeable, but not in a way that it understands.

s.217

> it does not relate itselfas a thinking consciousness to its object, but, though it is indeed in itself, or implicitly,
> a pure thinking individuality, and its object is just this pure
> thinking, it is only a movement towards thinking, and so is devotion.

- *andenken* (wordplay)

> Where that 'other' is sought, it cannot
> be found.

- stage 1

> When sought as a particular individual, it
> is not a universal individuality in the form of thought, not a Notion, but an individual in the form of an object, or an actual
> individual.

- stage 2

> Con~
> sciousness, therefore, can only find as a present reality the grave
> of its life.

- The crusade, Jesus in Jerusalem.
- But this fails too, because he is not in grave anymore.

> But because this grave is itself an actual existence and
> it is contrary to the nature of what actually exists to afford a
> lasting possession, the presence ofthat grave, too, is merely the
> struggle ofan enterprise doomed to failure.

- The Crusades fail. They thought they could get to God, but they only could get to what they thought was God.

> [T]he vanished individuality, because it has
> vanished, is not the true individuality.

s.218 *the return of the feeling heart into itself*

> [T]he Unhappy Consciousness merely finds itself desiring and working.

- My working and desiring (whatever I'm doing) is really the unchangeable working and desiring. s.220

> But, in this relation, it is also in itselfor has intrinsic
> being; this aspecthelongs to the Unchangeable beyond and
> consists of faculties and powers, a gift from an aliensQurce,
> which the Unchangeable makes over to consciousness to make
> use of.

- What I'm doing God is actually doing. I'm only a vessel of God.
- I and the God are the same thing because I'm gifted talent from God and the material is given by God.
- I should not feel good about myself but thank God.

s.222

> [E]ven its giving of thanks,
> in which it acknowledges the other extreme as the essential
> Being and counts itself nothing, is its own act ...

- I'm still there. I can't get rid of myself. Even that I renounce my thanks, it is I who renounce.

> the result is the renewed division into the opposed consciousness of the Unchangeable, and the consciousness of willing, performing, and enjoying, and selfrenunciation itself which confronts it.

- I feel good about my working.