Half Hour Hegel: The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit (Sense Certainty, sec. 109-110)

In this forty-fourth video in the new series on G.W.F. Hegel's great early work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, I read and comment on paragraphs 109 and 110 of the text, finishing our study of the first portion of the section "Consciousness," i.e "Sense Certainty".

We have learned now through the dialectical investigation into what sense certainty is that it does not possess immediacy, but rather involves a whole complex of mediations that have progressively come to light, ultimately highlighting the role of the universal. Turning to the practical sphere, we find that the objects of sense-certainty did not provide us with the truth or the essence we originally sought, but rather sensuous things exhibit their own nothingness.

In trying to speak about singular, individual things as what is most real, consciousness would up in paradoxes, since everything is an individual thing, which means individual thing is itself an abstract universal. We must turn instead to the complex universal -- and to the perceiving subject, which provides the content of the next section of the Phenomenology

In this video series, I will be working through the entire Phenomenology, paragraph by paragraph -- for each one, first reading the paragraph, and then commenting on what Hegel is doing, referencing, discussing, etc. in that paragraph.

This series is designed to provide an innovative digital resource that will assist students, lifelong learners, professionals, and even other philosophers in studying this classic work by Hegel for generations to come.

My videos are used by students, lifelong learners, other professors, and professionals to learn more about topics, texts, and thinkers in philosophy, religious studies, literature, social-political theory, critical thinking, and communications. These include college and university classes, British A-levels preparation, and Indian civil service (IAS) examination preparation

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[julieharrison]

Hi George, im from London and just wanted to say thank you so much for your videos.

I'm in my 1st year as a philosophy undergrad. You seem to have the knack of making complex issues more understandable, so I watch you all the time.

Just keep doing what you're doing. The mark of a good teacher is someone that allows the love of his or her subject shine through. And you do that!

Much love
Jules

[GregoryBSadler]

We finish up the first portion of the main body of the Phenomenology with this installment.  Next week, it's on to the next section -- "Perception: Or The Thing and Deception"!

[Winterwalker]

The way you unwrap this stuff (Zizek calls it "Hegelese") is incredible! Thank you so much for your work Dr. Sadler!

[WeBreakTheChain]

At 28:17 you actually prove Hegel's point (perhaps without knowing it): Hegel is literally referring to his piece of paper i.e. the actual manuscript, we don't have it, so we have to abstract, thus moving into the realm of universality - we pretend that "this book right here" is the piece of paper. In the very practical method of your example you are doing exactly what Hegel says happens when you try and grasp a singularity via language. I just thought that was funny.

[TheMadnessOfCrowds]

Thank you, Prof. Sadler. I am very much enjoying this series! 

[blondthought]

When Hegel speaks, my mind wanders.  Nice tie. 

[gregorywilliams]

Thanks! You brought this very vividly to life for me.

[stanstan]

These videos are amazing. Thank you so much.

[forlotta]

Thank you very much, as always. Glad to be finished with this section and moving onto Perception

[bannork]

Thank you so much for this series Dr Sadler, you are truly a teacher, able to explain difficult concepts clearly and with humour and passion, and for free! God bless Dr Sandler and you tube for this, but there is one item of knowledge I fear you may have difficulty communicating to your students. Why are you so fond of heavy metal? I love rock and blues being a child of the late 60s but those bands could play acoustic as well as rock- and as you say our pleasure of an experience soon fades if repeated. I'm surprised this doesn't apply to your enjoyment of heavy metal!

[dalepatterson]

I cannot help but think of Where the Wild Things Are when reading the line "but, despairing of their reality, and completely assured of their nothingness, they fall to without ceremony and eat them up"

[carolinamerighi]

Amazing work done, thank you!

One thing, is it then the philosophical implication that Hegel inevitably is that as language refers to universals then particular objects cannot be picked out and that there is no thing as immediate knowledge.

[thegrandprole]

Its interesting how Kant doesn't come to you very intuitively. I would say that, in my experience as someone younger, reading Kant was a clarifying experience in that it made me make sense of what I was already doing. I might be wrong but it might say something about how in this digital age where representations of things are everywhere we naturally have a distance to the thing itself.

[NoremakSeggob]

I definitely need more time with this, but I'm tempted to compare Kant and Hegel for a fuller understanding.

To my knowledge, Kant claims we can only have knowledge when we combine intuition (e.g. immediate sense perception) with concept (e.g. language and universals). I do not see clearly where Hegel makes this distinction: the possibility that we can have an immediate perception of an object prior to language, as distinct from the concept (in language) that we later create and mediate this perception with.

Is Hegel, from Kant's perspective, claiming that the combination of sensual intuition and concept is still not enough to give us knowledge about the senses, because our universals of language can never actually refer to the specific, temporal, spatial intuition that we have of an object? In objection to Kant, the two just cannot combine to give any meaningful knowledge, because the now that is experienced as it is in unmediated intuition becomes mediated and universalized and therefore a particular truth is diffused into the general?

[setroc]

Thanks for these Hegel video series it is quite illuminating on the thoughts and ideas found in the  Phenomenology.  Just curious is there a future possibility of  doing a short video on Nicolas de Cusa?

[StuartSafford]

I think that this is my favorite portion of Hegel's writings.  If I could understand this, it would be quite an accomplishment.  Things are quite a lot more complicated than perception dictates?  I would like to linger in the moments of some perceptions.  Is the term Nichtigheit the denial of a purported reality which is a supposed universal truth? 

[eylon]

what we percieve as "space" actualy does change its place. not in relation to other geographic places, but in relation to other planets etc

[jonathanjonsson]

Interesting. I guess Kant would call these "universals" two different things - the universal concept of 'paper' would be a concept under which we can sort synthesized sense data, while concepts like 'here' and 'now' would be a priori and fundamental in that they are not produced by cognition, but rather ENABLE cognition - or in the case of 'here' and 'now', they are schematized forms of fundamental categories, which makes it messier (involving our forms of Anschauung), an easier example would be "all the papers" where 'all' would be a fundamental moment in both logic and cognition... And 'I' would simply be the underlying unity of apperception which makes any coherent conscious experience possible, not a movement of different "slices" of I, negating each other and negating the negations. This would put 'here', 'now' and 'I' firmly on the subjective side of the cognitive process, even though they would not make sense to us unless consciousness had sense data to work on... I am still looking for more arguments in Hegel for why object and subject should be considered as moving into each other, rather than interacting in a form of cognitive dualism, structure/data. I suspect it has to do with consciousness, because honestly, Kant has such a minimal and poor description of the transcendental I and how it relates to the empirical self... and even worse when it comes to intersubjectivity and other minds. I am open to Hegel challenging me further on this in the battle for my favorite German ;)

[Philiopantheon]

Dr. Sadler, thanks once again. At this point i wanna ask you sincerely, is it possible to reconcile Kantian metaphysics into Hegel's method of metaphysics. I always stumble on this thought as many scholars are poles part when comes to Kant and Hegel, and weirdly enough i enjoy reading them both and i kinda see them meandering into the same stream, what is your view on that?

[mandys]

paragraph 109: oh, my ! Hegel is sounding the depths, speaking the profound mystic perception of the Eleusinian Mysteries!?!?!?? I like him more than ever, now. ~I'm kind of shocked! "in part he brings about the nothingness of such things himself in his dealings with them..." I don't think people are aware that Hegel is like this (?!?!?!?!?!???) This is the most amazed that i have been...so far :D