Half Hour Hegel: The Complete Phenomenology of Spirit (Lordship and Bondage, sec. 194-195)

In this seventy-eight video in the new series on G.W.F. Hegel's great early work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, we continue our study of the second portion of the section "Self-Consciousness", i.e. "Lordship and Bondage", or the "Master-Slave Dialectic". I read and comment on paragraphs 194-195 of the text here.

Hegel now turns to considering the Slave and the servile consciousness, no longer simply in relation to the Master, but for its own sake. Truth lies on the side of the Slave, but this is at first only implicit, and has to be worked out and through.

One key moment of this occurs in the Fear that the Slave is made to feel, a fear which shakes the very foundations of his consciousness, and which thereby allows the servile consciousness to be transformed, or rather to be engaged in the process of self-transformation. This occurs primarily through Service and through Work.

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.

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[ligottifan]

I encountered Master-Slave Dialectic long ago but having gone through the previous 195 sections I can see how richer it is to have gone through all that came before (very Hegelian I know). I guess you can teach this stand alone but after having slugged through the previous 195 sections in the Phenomenology, my prior encounter with Hegel seems like the black and white 200lb Magnavox TV I had when I was 6 compared to an HD surround sound hyper pixelated 80" plasma screen. Not saying my professors were wrong, just that going section by section and getting here makes what I first encountered so much richer and clearer. Hegel beautifully and brilliantly builds off every section. Thanks!

[connorbyers]

These few passages were revolutionary themselves

[gillianmmm]

I'm having problems in grasping Hegel's idealism (as in: all reality is spirit or objective world as a product of thought). My take on passage 195 leads me to assume that Hegel comes to the conclusion that self-consciousness no longer gains recognition through another self-consciousness but through the reflection of the material world it shapes. I am not sure if this is an interpretative leap. Be as it may, when braking down passage 195 I trust that the following can be established:
In contrast to the master's activity, where he simply consumes the end product, the slave through work, forms and shapes the world, structuring things in a somewhat permanent way (or in a manner that enables them to be sublated, therefor, contributing to the dialectic process). This "formative activity", which can be seen as something materialised outside of consciousness, ends up as the "pure being-for-self of consciousness".
This is reinforced in the analysis of passage 196: the bondsman "discovers itself on otherness"; "in shaping the thing creatively he becomes aware of his own boundless originality". Additionally, passage 196 hints that we, out of fear, shape the world in order to gain control over it.

[juliancarlson]

Shout out to all the secretaries out there!

[tehnik]

Is it random whether a video includes automatically generated subtitles or what determines whether they are in a video?