50 pages • 1 hour read
Phenomenology of Spirit
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Preface-IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface Summary: “On Scientific Cognition”
Most philosophical works begin by outlining the author’s purpose and how his ideas relate to the work of other philosophers. However, Hegel states that this type of preface is built upon the belief that a particular philosophy is final and should be taken as absolute truth. Hegel argues that any philosophical work is a part of a slow process of discovery: “It does not comprehend the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive unfolding of truth, but rather sees in it simple disagreements” (2). He compares philosophy to a flower’s bud which gradually unfolds, each petal contributing to the blossom, even as the petals crowd one another, representing philosophical conflict. Finally, the fruit appears, representing the truth.
Finding fault with fixed knowledge which ignores the gradual unfolding of truth, Hegel suggests that the nature of consciousness evolves and builds upon itself. He believes philosophers spend so much time focusing on how their work is distinguished from the work of others and arguing why their ideas are superior that they fail to place their attention on uncovering core truths and do not see how their contributions are a part of a greater whole.
Hegel rejects epistemology which focuses on the origin of knowledge and turns his attention toward developing a comprehensive system of science, which he believes leads to absolute truth—a purer form of knowing. Too often truth is defined by intuition, forming what Hegel calls “Notion.” People are too willing to accept Notions as fundamental truths because of their familiarity, including concepts like God, nature, and understanding. He asserts that it is philosophy’s responsibility to move beyond intuition and to abandon its obsession with uncovering meaning by looking at the universe or the divine. Instead, philosophy should focus on the concrete experience of the individual.
While it is easy for people to look toward the divine to make sense of life and feeling, philosophy should be concerned with scientific truth. Emphasizing divinity obscures the truth by surrendering to the idea that some knowledge belongs only to God. Hegel argues that focusing solely on the origin of knowledge is like laying a foundation for a building and then pretending it is finished. He suggests that philosophers would make better use of their time and thoughts by examining the experience of consciousness through science.
Hegel proposes a scientific study of consciousness, including the complex relationship between the self and the exterior world. The scientific system involves the examination of a proposition of a principle and the refutation of the proposition’s faults. Doing so leads to the growth of the original principle. Truth is found when the system of science provides understanding to the experience of consciousness, or phenomenology. Absolute truth is uncovered when individuals recognize their own consciousness and understand that they encompass the contradictory experience of both knowing and not knowing.
All humans contain a disparity between their consciousness and the substance, or the object outside of themselves. The function of science is to bring unity of contradictions into a form of absolute knowing. Philosophy must move beyond the abstract and embrace logic through dialectical movement by developing a comprehensive understanding of how both knowing and not knowing contribute to experience.
Introduction Summary
In the introduction, Hegel defines cognition and outlines his arguments against priori knowledge. Philosophers disagree about whether cognition should be regarded as something that contains absolute truth or as an instrument used to discover it. He argues that both knowledge and absolute knowing are a product of phenomenology, or experience. Cognition is not consciousness itself. People can only experience the world as it filters through the lens of their own minds; therefore, their cognition shapes their reality rather than the reverse. Hegel refers to the logic of reason as cognition, and he proposes that cognition is a way for humans to make sense of their experience: “[I]t is obvious that the use of an instrument on a thing certainly does not let it be what it is for itself, but rather sets out to reshape and alter it” (46).
Cognition is how humans experience truth. If cognition is removed, then there is nothing left. Consciousness seeks to draw a connection between itself and external truth. It cannot believe that anything exists without a relationship to consciousness itself. Discovery, or the unrealized Notion, is made by challenging one’s thoughts. Hegel proposes that this leads to a discovery of absolute truth. Therefore, cognition is absolute truth, and arguments that focus elsewhere are unscientific.
Like consciousness, science is limited by examining the world through its own nature and perception. Science is an unfinished project that is still evolving, just as consciousness is in a state of constant evolution. Therefore, a stronger science recognizes its own limitations and the truth that emerges from experience and growth. Science and knowledge cannot exist as a being-in-itself, meaning it will never exist independently from a person’s individual experience and cognition.
Similarly, humans can never exist as a being-in-itself. Consciousness will always operate in relation to its perception of what is outside of the individual, as well as its own understanding of truth. While Hegel recognizes that there is an absolute truth, a being-in-itself, he concerns himself with understanding how this truth is transformed by experience and cognition.
Preface-Introduction Analysis
Hegel wrote the preface to Phenomenology of Spirit after the work was completed. He begins in a presuppositionless state, meaning that, instead of outlining how his work stands on the foundation of previous philosophical thought—a technique that is traditional in philosophical writing—he suggests that Phenomenology of Spirit presents new ideas which contribute to The Evolution of Truth and Consciousness.
In the Preface, Hegel criticizes epistemology, the theory of knowledge, for its devotion to innate knowledge. To understand Hegel’s argument, it is important to note that the term “spirit” can be translated to also mean “mind.” Prior to Hegel’s theories, many philosophers focused their attention on how humans obtain knowledge. Greek philosopher Aristotle presented the concept of priori, forms of knowledge he believed all humans are born with. Priori is independent of a person’s experience. Knowledge of one’s own existence, or consciousness, is considered an example of priori. Other examples are more concrete. If a child has three toys, the child understands innately that if someone were to take away two toys, the child would be left with only one. Philosopher John Locke challenged the theory of innate knowledge with his concept of the tabula rasa, the assertion that all humans’ minds are a blank slate at inception and that all knowledge is formed through experience.
Immanuel Kant built on Aristotle’s work on the concept of priori by arguing that humans have a moral knowledge that is independent of experience. An example of this is the lying promise. Imagine a mother asks her son to clean his room when he gets home from school. The son is planning on visiting with friends that evening, so he will not be able to clean his room. To appease his mother and avoid conflict, the son considers promising his mother that he will complete the task, knowing that he will not. The priori comes into play as the son recognizes that if everyone made promises they did not intend to keep, then there would be no reason to trust anyone.
Like Locke, Hegel rejects the concept of priori. However, his philosophy is not built upon the idea that all knowledge is developed through experience. Instead, Hegel argues that focusing on the origin of knowledge is an unworthy vocation altogether. Turning one’s attention toward a form of innate knowledge, particularly one endowed by God, strips philosophy of its scientific credibility:
Imagine that, by drawing a veil over self-consciousness and surrendering understanding they become the beloved of God to whom He gives wisdom in sleep; and hence what they in fact receive, and bring to birth in their sleep, is nothing but dreams (6).
Rather than worrying about the origin of knowledge, Hegel concerns himself with cognition, the systems of the mind that form logic, and the connection between cognition and consciousness. Hegel asserts that understanding cognition is the beginning of understanding ontology (the nature of being) and the nature of human minds. He suggests that both objective knowledge and absolute knowing are interior processes belonging to consciousness rather than parts of exterior reality. This means that knowledge is not innate; it is not passively accepted by divinity or an exterior source. Instead, it is a part of conscious experience.
Hegel uses the term in-itself to refer to the self-sufficiency of a being. He argues that human consciousness, as well as science, can never exist as beings-in-itself. Everything that a person experiences is dropped through a sieve of individual experience and perception. Therefore, nothing is self-sufficient or totally objective. An example of this can be found in a simple plot structure of misunderstanding. A character waits for a phone call from her doctor to find out the result of an important medical test. Meanwhile, her husband believes she is checking her phone repeatedly because she is having an affair. Both characters experience the external through the lens of their own perceptions. However, a person’s understanding of truth is the alignment of their cognition with the external; they must be able to draw a connection between their thoughts and the being-in-itself. There is an element of the truth in both their experiences. Both characters have a connection to the being-in-itself—that something is happening, and the phone is a transmitter of its message. Hegel is interested in a scientific process, or The Science of Logic and Absolute Knowing, that finds the nugget of truth within experience and allows it to grow.
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