On Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Mind’: the self-knowing, actual Idea — part four.
‘Psyche borne by Zephyrs to the Island of Pleasure’
by Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835)
I.
Fearfully and mournfully
Thou bid’st the earth farewell,
And yet thou’rt passing, loveliest one!
In a brighter land to dwell.
II.
Ascend, ascend rejoicing!
The sunshine of that shore
Around thee, as a glorious robe,
Shall stream for evermore.
III.
The breezy music wandering
There through the’ Elysian sky,
Hath no deep tone that seems to float
From a happier time gone by:
IV.
And there the day’s last crimson
Gives no sad memories birth;
No thought of dead or distant friends,
Or partings — as on earth.
V.
Yet fearfully and mournfully
Thou bid’st that earth farewell,
Altho’ thou ‘rt passing, loveliest one!
In a brighter land to dwell.
VI.
A land where all is deathless —
The sunny wave’s repose,
The wood, with its rich melodies,
The summer and its rose.
VII.
A land that sees no parting,
That hears no sound of sighs,
That waits thee with immortal air —
Lift, lift those anxious eyes!
VIII.
Oh! how like thee, thou trembler!
Man’s spirit fondly clings,
With timid love, to this, its world
Of old familiar things!
IX.
We pant, we thirst for fountains
That gush not here below;
On, on we toil, allured by dreams
Of the living water’s flow:
X.
We pine for kindred natures,
To mingle with our own;
For communings more full and high
Than aught by mortal known:
XI.
We strive with brief aspirings
Against our bounds in vain;
Yet summoned to be free at last,
We shrink — and clasp our chain!
XII.
And fearfully and mournfully
We bid the earth farewell,
Tho’ passing from its mists, like thee,
In a brighter world to dwell.
________________________________
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1881). ‘Philosophy of Mind’.
§383 ‘This universality is also its reality. As it is for itself, the universal is self-particularizing, while still remaining self-identity. Therefore the determinacy of mind is manifestation. The mind is not some one determinacy or content whose expression or externality is only a form distinct from the mind itself. Hence it does not reveal something; its determinacy and content is this very revelation. Its possibility is therefore immediately infinite, absolute actuality’.
- ‘Philosophy of Mind’
The mind’s abstract universality is not only mind’s possibility but also its Dasein, its reality (§382). Dasein is not so far from Wirklichkeit, actuality, and the mind’s universality cannot remain merely potential, it has to be actualized because it has a being of its own, it is for itself. Other kinds of universal, circularity for instance, need not be actualized, there is no necessity for actual circles, because this universal is not for itself. If it is actualized it has to ne be particularized, actualized in a particular kind of way, and this is applicable to other types of universal also, an actual circle has to be a particular kind of circle. If it is actualized and particularized it has to particularize itself, because it is independent of other things. By contrast the particular manner by which circularity is actualized depends upon factors extraneous to the universal itself. For itself brings together the notions of independence, actuality, and self-awareness.
The determinacy of a thing is its intrinsic nature or content and in many instances this determinacy may either be manifested or remain concealed, a scar, for instance, can be revealed or hidden but mind has no such determinacy, its determinacy is manifestation or revelation whereby manifestation brings together the notion of being manifest to oneself, that is self-awareness, and the notion of manifesting oneself by positing or creating something definite. Therefore, manifestation is close to actualization, a scar may remain concealed even from the bearer of the scar may considered thus be simply potential, but a mind cannot remain concealed, its possibility or potentiality is by that very fact its actuality and this actuality is infinite since it is self-generated, independent of anything else, and in addition since it is reflexive, the mind manifests not something other than mind but the mind itself and the notion that the mind is intrinsically indeterminate stretches from Aristotle, the nous, intellect, all the way down to Jean-Paul Sartre, the pour-soi, for itself.
‘Earlier, we posited the distinctive determinacy of mind in ideality, in sublation of the otherness of the Idea. If now, in §383 above, ‘manifestation’ is given as the determinacy of mind, this is not a new, not a second, determination of mind, but only a development of the determination discussed earlier. For by sublation of its otherness, the logical Idea, or the mind that is in itself, becomes for itself, in other words, revealed to itself. Mind which is for itself, or mind as such- in contrast to mind which is in itself, unknown to itself, revealed only to us, poured out into the asunderness of nature- is, therefore, that which reveals itself not merely to an Other but to itself, or, what amounts to the same thing, that which accomplishes its revelation in its own element, not in an alien material. This determination pertains to mind as such; it holds true therefore of mind not only in so far as mind relates itself simply to itself, is an I having itself as object, but also in so far as mind steps out of its abstract universality, the universality that is for itself, and posits within itself a determinate distinction, something other than itself; for the mind does not lose itself in this Other, but, on the contrary, preserves and actualizes itself in it, impresses on it the mind’s own interior, makes the Other into a reality corresponding to mind, and so by this sublation of the Other, of the determinate, actual difference, comes to concrete being-for-self, to determinate revelation to itself. In the Other, therefore, the mind reveals only itself, its own nature, but its nature consists in self-revelation’.
- ‘Philosophy of Mind’
On ideality see §381. This is either: the otherness of the Idea is the otherness of the logical Idea or the otherness of the Idea in nature. Earlier: §381, it was the otherness of the Idea in nature yet here it appears to be the otherness of the logical Idea but it has to be the otherness of the Idea in nature that is to be sublated. The logical Idea is not yet other than itself, it is enclosed within itself and is thereby not disclosed to itself, it can only be disclosed to itself by first externalizing itself in nature and hence becoming other than itself. This is the mind that is in itself, then the mind sublates this otherness and this is the mind’s ideality but in doing this the mind becomes for itself, that is, self-aware, as well as independent and actualized, and so it is to itself disclosed to itself. This is self-knowledge, see §377, in our conceptual mastery of nature we become aware of our own mental structures and capacities.
Two questions are now distinguished that had previously been conflated. First, why must the I posit anything other than itself, that is, disclose itself? That is to say, why can I not just be me, a pure ego, without troubling myself about anything else? Second, why is the mind self-aware, that is, disclosed to itself? Thus far the answer to the first question was that Mind has to posit its other in order to sublate it, and, by implication, Mind is completely empty unless it posits its other, it must give itself some content. The answer to the second question has been that the pure I has to be self-aware, because there is nothing to it other than self-awareness. If it is for itself, in the sense of independent, it has to be for itself in the sense of self-aware. Furthermore, it has to posit its other within itself, not outside like an egg it has laid, and it can only do this by remaining aware of it. The two questions are now distinguished. The mind discloses or manifests itself in two different ways, I can simply focus on myself as an I and then the I is manifest to itself but the I also posits its other and puts its stamp upon it, for instance, converts the many women it has seen into the notion of woman, and thereby attains concrete being for-self , determinate revelation to itself . Because its other bears the stamp of the mind, in positing its other the mind manifests itself, and in being aware of its other it is aware of itself, that is manifests itself to itself.
However, earlier the contention was that the logical Idea is in facy embedded in nature and is not simply imposed on it by us (§381) but the logical Idea is embedded both in nature and in our minds. Nonetheless, in our initial encounter with nature we do not recognize the logical Idea in it, we therefore need to impose our categories upon nature but in doing so we make contact with the categories implicitly present in nature. Nature comes out to meet us in a manner of speaking and within this perspective understanding nature is comparable to doing a jigsaw puzzle, beginning with a rough notion of what the picture should be and endeavour to impose this upon the pieces, to begin with our imposition is to some degree forcible yet eventually the picture emerges from the pieces more spontaneously and we recognize that it was implicit in the pieces from the start.
Four propositions are advance. First, a content of the mind is essentially disclosed. Second, such a content has no intrinsic character apart from its occurrence in the form of revelation. Third, whatever the mind discloses is, or belongs to, the mind itself. Fourth, the content disclosed is just the revelation itself. The first proposition is plausible in that a pain has to be disclosed to one who has it and so must the idea of a tree. As for the second proposition we may retort that there has to be a residual content, something besides the sheer revelation, to distinguish a revealed pain from a revealed itch or the notion of a woman from the notion of a cat. And yet perhaps what is meant is that whatever it is that distinguishes a pain from an itch or the notion of a woman from the notion of a cat has to be disclosed, that no aspect of any content can remain undisclosed. This interpretation of the second proposition rubs against the fourth proposition for if all that is disclosed is revelation then nothing else is disclosed, neither pains, itches, women, barrels, nor the notions of them. We need not take the fourth proposition too literally, it is rather an over-stated expression of the first proposition, together with its converse, the third proposition. Whatever is disclosed by mind is a content of mind, not something distinct from mind.
Revelation is a form and what is disclosed is a content. The ‘Encyclopaedia Logic’ established that every content has some form (§133). A content may indeed have any one of several forms, for instance a book may be published in writing, in print, or electronically, albeit it must have some such form if it is to exist at all. And a content can only have one form or at the very least only one appropriate form, the content of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ for instance can only appear in the form of an epic poem in hexameters, any other form would be wrong and would make the work formless. Furthermore a particular colour or a particular sound has its content in virtue of its formal relationships to other colours or other sounds, (‘Encyclopaedia Logic’ §§91–2). On the other hand every form has some content. and every content has a form. For instance, turning to contemporary logic, any proposition or content has a logical form whether it be merely ‘p’ or some more complex form such as ‘if p, then q’ or ‘everything that is F is also G’. A propositional form, such as ‘if p, then q’, may be given a content, such as ‘if pigs could whistle then Hegel is a philosopher’. Ich glaube mein Schwein pfeift. Maybe the form makes the content into the content, the proposition could not have that content unless it had that form, or at the very least some form or other, but the propositional form ‘if p, then q’ does not as such have a content, I cannot by uttering this expression make any definite assertion, and yet a response to this is forthcoming, the form itself is, or at the very least can become, a content, I can dwell on it and make claims regarding it just as I do about anything else, indeed the form must have a content to differentiate it from other logical forms, such as ‘not-p and not-q’.
A question arises as to how it follows that a mental content must be disclosed given that a content perhaps is in need of a form if it is to exist at all and to differ from other contents and yet revelation is only one kind of form and not one that need accompany every content, books may remain unpublished, music unplayed, and secrets kept secret, nonetheless revelation is not merely one form among others but is rather the common structure of all form. Content is a being-within-itself, the intrinsic nature of a thing, while form is the thing’s relations to other things, its external revelation, for instance, the relations of blue to white, red to black, and so on, or of ‘if p, then q’ to ‘not-p and not-q’.
We then make the move from such a general notion of revelation to the more particular notion pertaining to the mind, a pain and an itch are in need of formal relations to each other to account for their distinctive content, and to understand why either has to be revealed in any further sense, either to oneself or to others, recall Hegel’s account of the inner and the outer in the ‘Encyclopaedia Logic’, (§140), whereby if something is simply inner, that is to say, unexpressed, then it is only ‘in itself, potential and undeveloped. Rather than pains and itches we should consider such things as a notion. An notion comes to me before I express it but it is not fully formed in my mind before I express it, until I express it, in words or paint or in manipulation of objects in my environment, the notion is inchoate and undeveloped, and when I give expression to it the notion may be revealed to others but it is also revealed to myself, I only see what my notion in fact comes to when I observe it embodied before me. Only when my notion is expressed can it come into contact with other notions and define itself in relation to them and the mind’s drive to reveal itself is hence a drive to actualize itself, (§383). But we cannot remain amidst such generalities but must get to know mind, and so on, that is t say, demonstrate in detail how the mind works.
‘The revelation of itself to itself is therefore the very content of mind and not, as it were, only a form externally added to its content; consequently mind, by its revelation, does not reveal a content different from its form, but reveals its form, the form expressing the entire content of mind, namely, its self-revelation. In mind, therefore, form and content are identical with each other. Of course, revelation is usually represented as an empty form which still requires the addition a content from outside; and by content is understood a being-within-itself, something keeping-within-itself, and by form, on the other hand, the external manner of the relation of the content to an Other. But in speculative logic it is demonstrated that, in truth, the content is not merely a being-within-itself, but something which spontaneously enters into relation with an Other; just as, conversely, in truth, the form must be grasped not merely as something dependent, external to the content, but rather as that which makes the content into the content, into a beingwithin-itself, into something distinct from an Other. The genuine content contains, therefore, form within itself, and the genuine form is its own content. But we have to get to know mind as this genuine content and as this genuine form. -ln order to explain for representation this unity of form and content present in mind, the unity of revelation and what is revealed, we can refer to the teaching of the Christian religion. Christianity says: God has revealed himself through Christ, his only begotten Son. Representation initially takes this statement to mean that Christ is only the instrument of this revelation, that what is revealed in this manner is something other than what reveals it. But, in truth, the statement rather has this sense: God has revealed that his nature consists in having a Son, i.e. in differentiating himself, making himself finite, but in his difference remaining together with himself, beholding himself and revealing himself in the Son, and by this unity with the Son, by this being for-himself in the Other, he is absolute mind, so that the Son is not the mere instrument of the revelation but is himself the content of the revelation’.
- ‘Philosophy of Mind’
If Christ is merely the instrument (Organ) of the revelation, then what is revealed, that is to say, God, is different from what reveals it, that is to say, Christ. Likewise if I say I have a good idea my words are distinct from my good idea, I can have a good idea without saying so, or say so without having a good idea, and contrariwise if I express my idea in a painting, my painting reveals not simply my idea but in addition its tendency albeit not unfailing to reveal itself in paint. Likewise, in begetting a Son, God reveals his unfailing tendency to beget a Son, albeit God is in some manner different from the Son he nevertheless maintains his unity with it. By analogy, the mind, albeit it is somehow different from the painting it has created, recognizes itself, its notion, in the painting and hence reveals only itself in its other. But what of the fourth proposition of §383? : ‘The content revealed is just the revelation itself ’. That God is revealed by a Son, rather than a daughter, a geyser, an earthquake, or whatever, implicates a content independent of the sheer form of revelation and so too does the mind’s revelation of itself in this particular painting rather than some other painting or a brick wall, but we can think of it in this manner. God and the mind are completely revealed and nothing is withheld.
An acorn is a possible or potential oak-tree, the possibility of the oak-tree is the concept of an oak-tree embodied in the acorn and as the plant grows it gradually actualizes this concept and becomes an actual oak-tree, but an oak-tree is not the unity of possibility and actuality, certainly not in the way that a mind is. And how do they differ given the quandary concerning saying what a simply potential, simply inward mind would be? Well, first, a pure I or ego with no other states or activities would differ from an acorn in that while an acorn may remain undeveloped there cannot be a mind that is only a pure ego, a mind has to actualize itself in this sense if it is to be a mind at all but an ego that does have states and activities differs from an oak-tree in that whereas the oak-tree has left its possibility behind and retains nothing of the acorn a developed mind still has the ego underlying it, its possibility is preserved in its actuality.
Secondly, a mind has states and activities that it expresses or reveals neither to itself nor to others, Hegel does not believe that there could be such a mind, for acorns need not grow but minds have to actualize themselves in this manner, nonetheless a developed mind retains its inner side in a manner that a developed oak-tree does not.
Thirdly, the mind of an embryo or an infant resembles the acorn in that it need not develop further but if it does develop it differs from the acorn in that it is retained beneath the surface in the rational adult mind (see §408 concerning insanity). Hence there are several ways in which the mind might be said to be the unity of possibility and actuality, we should keep them all in view. (§384).
§384 ‘Revelation, as the revelation of the abstract Idea, is the unmediated transition, the becoming, of nature. As the revelation of mind, which is free, it is the positing of nature as its world; but because this positing is reflection, it is at the same time the presupposition of the world as independent nature. Revelation in the concept is creation of nature as its being, in which the mind procures the affirmation and truth of its freedom’.
This is the first of three forms of revelation in which three different things happen to nature. The revelation of the ‘abstract’, that is to say logical, Idea is an immediate transition to nature not mediated by mind (‘Encyclopaedia Logic’, §244). This is nature’s becoming or coming to be (§384). In the second revelation, mind posits nature as its, namely the mind’s, world (§384) and yet because this positing is Reflection it also presupposes or posits in advance this world as mind-independent nature. Reflection combines the ideas of reflecting back something (primarily light) and of reflecting on something. Mind reflects on nature, nature and mind are each reflected back into themselves, as independent spheres. Reflection on things is an inferior mode of thought, closer to Understanding than to reason (‘Encyclopaedia Logic’, §112).
The third revelation is discussed in §384. ‘In the concept’ means implicitly yet also indicates the conceptual rather than reflective character of the third revelation. It is a creation of nature that may alternatively refer to the world not as an independent nature, but as its being, that is to say, as an extension of itself. The mind perfects its freedom in the third revelation, since it discovers that its other, nature, is itself mind and this revelation is carried out by absolute mind: God and human art, religion and philosophy.
‘The absolute is mind. This is the highest definition of the absolute. To find this definition and to comprehend its meaning and content was, we may say, the absolute tendency of all culture and philosophy; it was the point towards which all religion and science pressed on; only this impetus enables us to comprehend the history of the world.-The word ‘mind’, and the representation of mind, were found early on, and the concept of the Christian religion is to make God known as mind. It is the task of philosophy to grasp in its own element, the concept, what is here given to representation and what is in itself the essence. That problem is not genuinely and immanently solved until freedom and the concept become the object and the soul of philosophy’.
- ‘Philosophy of Mind’
Man and woman and their efforts to understand the world, him or herself, God, and so on, are not distinct from God, but the culminating phase of God, God’s self-consciousness. At their highest phase, absolute mind, God and man coincide. That God is mind or spirit was, in Christianity, presented to our imagination or representation and philosophy apprehends it in the concept or conceptually. Absolute mind (§553) recognizes with increasing clearness and vividness that ultimate reality, God, the Absolute, or the essence, is mind. The three revelations are associated with the Holy Trinity but do not exactly match it, the Son, the second member of the Trinity, corresponds to the emergence of nature, that is to say, the first revelation. (§381).
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Now, I’m not a man
And I don’t feel love
And I don’t see anything
Coming down from above
But this world spins slowly
And I see a light
Rising from behind the horizon
Up into the clear black sky
But I don’t see you
In my line of sight
In fact, I can’t remember
Why we are alive
Why are we alive?
Why are we alive?
Why are we alive?
Why are we?
______________________________________________
The revelation of the logical Idea in nature (§384) is also a revelation of mind, because the logical Idea is mind in itself, and since nature as such is in contradiction with the Idea nature has to develop into a mind that is no longer just in itself but awake and self-conscious and this development is not itself a revelation, it sets the stage for the second revelation. Mind emerges from nature, but nature still remains as something other than mind leaving a rift between mind’s consciousness of nature and its self-consciousness corresponding to the rift between nature and mind. Mind does what it can at the level of natural science and non-philosophical understanding to close this rift but the rift still persists since mind fails to recognise first that a mind with which it is in unity is active in nature, and secondly that nature is the creation of infinite min. The two contentions, that mind is active in nature and that nature is the creation of mind, are not the same contention, for the first contention does not entail the seond contention, mind may well be active in nature without creating nature, furthermore the second contention does not entail the first contention for the mind may well produce something that does not itself contain mind.
The second contention is an evident religious doctrine while the first contention is the philosophical equivalent and is saying to put it simply that the logical structure of nature is the same as the logical structure of our thought. Which brings us to the third revelation of absolute mind (§384). In the first revelation mind remains in itself, in the second it becomes for itself but neglects to recognise its unity with mind in itself within nature. The third revelation unites mind’s being-in-itself and its being-for-itself so it is now in and for itself. Being in itself is equated with its concept or possibility, being for itself with its actuality. This unity of possibility and actuality differs from that discoursed upon in §383 that in the main refers to the mind’s drive to reveal itself or become for itself, a drive involved in mind’s in itself or concept. This is the second revelation of §384 whereas §383 conceded that finite mind does not attain the absolute unity of possibility and actuality. This was reserved for absolute mind, that is the third revelation with which we are now concerned, the mind’s recognition of its unity with mind in itself, or nature. The oak-tree provides no counterpart to this for however it grows, it never recognizes its unity with the acorn. Mind absolutely revealed to itself, and so on, is contrasted with mind in itself (the first revelation) and mind for itself (the second revelation) and such lower kinds of mind may be human’s mind at early stages or God’s mind, according to non-Christian accounts of God. God and man so conceived are distinct from each other but they coincide at the level of absolute mind (§384).
Three conceptions of the eternal display the pattern, unity, difference, unity in difference. Hinduism is left out because since it does not fit this pattern (§377). In oriental monotheism and later atavisms such as the Enlightenment God is self-enclosed and abstract, God the Father bereft of his tendency to generate Son and Holy Spirit. God is in himself and distinct from nature and from man. In Greek religion God begins to be revealed, the rift between God and nature is closed because nature is elevated to the level of mind, that is to say utilised to portray gods in a lifelike human form, yet since Greek religion operated only with sensory intuition or ‘representation the totality of mind takes the form of polytheism with independent gods related only by a power that eludes their control and is therefore not subdued by mind. Christianity brings together the meritorious notions of oriental and Greek religion while eschewing their defects as it reveals God as a differentiated unity, at first in the form of representation yet later in the form of the concept.
Such a sequence of religions corresponds roughly to philosophy’s progress from the imperfect forms of mind’s revelation to its highest form, the self-enclosed oriental God vaguely looks like mind implicit in nature but also the mind as considered by rational psychology (§378). Greek religion looks like the mind as it unfolds in the greater part of the ‘Philosophy of Nature’ and inaddition mind as regarded by empirical faculty psychology. (§378, §379). Christianity looks like and virtually coincides with absolute mind and yet it in addition symbolizes the Hegelian philosophy of mind bringing together the merits and leaving out the defects of the rational and faculty psychologies. Christianity one might say imbues his philosophy while also constituting its final phase.
‘The highest definition of the Absolute is this: it is not merely mind in general, it is mind absolutely revealed to itself, self-conscious, infinitely creative mind, which we have just characterized as the third form of its revelation. Just as in science we progress from the imperfect forms of mind’s revelation delineated above to the highest form of its revelation, so, too, world-histoty exhibits a series of conceptions of the eternal, only at the conclusion of which does the concept of absolute mind emerge. Oriental religions, and the Judaic religion too, stop short at the still abstract concept of God and of mind, as is done even by the Enlightenment which wants to know only of God the Father; for God the Father, by himself, is the self-enclosed, the abstract, therefore not yet the spiritual God, not yet the genuine God. In Greek religion God did, of course, begin to be revealed in a determinate manner. The portrayal of the Greek gods had beauty for its law, nature raised to the level of mind. The beautiful does not remain something abstractly ideal, but in its ideality it is at once perfectly determinate, individualized. The Greek gods are, however, initially only displayed for sensory intuition or for representation, they are not yet grasped in thought. But the sensory medium can only exhibit the totality of mind as an asunderness, as a circle of individual spiritual shapes; the unity embracing all these shapes remains, therefore, a wholly indeterminate, alien power over against the gods. The one nature of God, differentiated within itself, the totality of the divine mind in the form of unity, has first been revealed by the Christian religion. This content, given in the mode of representation, has to be raised by philosophy into the form of the concept or of absolute knowledge, which, as we have said, is the highest revelation of that content’.
- ‘Philosophy of Mind’
Speaking of revelations, dedicated to my muse, who has revealed so much to me, ❤️, I know why I am alive:
In a never-ending circle I’ve been sheltering a dream I could climb over a rainbow To a place I haven’t been
Never felt this way before Trustin’ you I feel so sure Now we are behind close doors The way you make me feel
What we do in privacy (Reveal) Make a woman out of me (Reveal) When you’re close it feels so right (Reveal) You and I revealed tonight
Take me from this lonely river Home into the open sea
Never felt this way before In your hands I’m free to fall Show what’s underneath it all The way you make me feel
What we do in privacy (Reveal) Make a woman out of me (Reveal) When you’re close it feels so right (Reveal) You and I revealed tonight
And every… breath I take I feel you here inside me Each night I… lie awake Dreaming you will find me And every… brand new morning You’re the sun that’s dawning And I love that landslide Feel so good, I want to cry…
Never felt this way before In yours hands I’m free to fall Show what’s underneath it all The way you make me feel
What we do in privacy (Reveal) Make a woman out of me (Reveal) When you’re close it feels so right (Reveleal) You and I revealed tonight (Reveal) You and I feel so right (Reveal) You and I revealed tonight The way you make me feel so good It feels so right
You and I Reveal myself, reveal myself You and I, you and I Let me reveal myself, oh yeah You and I The way you made me feel so good Feel so right
__________
Celine Dion — ‘Reveal’:
Coming up next:
The development of mind.
It may stop but it never ends,
