Notes of the 25 February session

B. Self-consciousness: IV. The truth of self-certainty (104-138)

Wednesday, 19 November 2014 (notes by Marton Ribary)

Hegel introduces a number of social metaphors in section B entitled “Self-consciousness”. The perplexing question is whether the social turn of the Phenomenology is genuine. Does Hegel now embark on outlining a social philosophy after the epistemological section A entitled “Consciousness”? Or are his social metaphors merely means for speaking more easily about the complex nature of perception?

Lord and bondsman:

Hegel introduces these concepts in §189 as two forms of consciousness after “the dissolution of that simple unity” of pure self-consciousness. One is “immediate” (or rather “existing” for the German seiend), the other is “in the form of thinghood”; one is “independent … whose essential nature is to be for itself”, the other is “dependent … whose essential nature is simply to live or to be for another.” “The former is lord, the other is bondsman.” The constellations of lord and bondsman seem to replicate the opposition of subject and object at the level of self-certainty, that of the being for itself and being for another at the level of perception, and that of understanding and appearance at the level of consciousness. The dialectical process has now moved onto the subsequent level of self-consciousness which may or may not be inherently social.