Hegels Theory of Consciousness

As I have mentioned, there is a great deal of scholarly debate over the role and differences
between the Jena and later versions of the Phenomenology. M. J. Petry,
among others, argues that the Encyclopaedia Phenomenology represents Hegels mature
theory of consciousness.20 This is further echoed in the Berlin Phenomenology,
which is an exposition of the Encyclopaedia version Hegel delivered in the summer
term of 1825. In these accounts, it may be argued that Hegel provides a more
analytical and rigorous inspection of the unfolding of consciousness and selfconsciousness,
with the Jena Phenomenology having been selectively reappropriated
into his mature system. The beginning framework of his revised program may be
seen as early as 1808, in which many main features of his later theory of consciousness
were apparent in the syllabus he drafted for his pupils at Nuremberg.21
Notwithstanding the value of the Jena work, taken together, the Encyclopaedia Phenomenology
and the Berlin Phenomenology provide an equally if not more comprehensive
elaboration of Hegels doctrine of consciousness. For the prefatory
purpose of examining Hegels psychology, it becomes important to provide a brief
account of Hegels theory of consciousness offered in the Encyclopaedia.
For Hegel, consciousness (Bewutsein) is distinct from the soul (Seele) and the
unconscious (Unbewute), yet as we have seen, consciousness is an outgrowth of
the unconscious soul and is hence the souls appearance as ego. Consciousness
constitutes spirit at the stage of reflection or relationship, that is as appearance . . .
ego is consciousness (EG 413). But as self-certainty, the ego is an immediate
being or subject that must confront its otherness, namely, its object. In the first
instance the ego is only the wholly abstract subjective being of simply formal,
contentless self-differentiation. Consequently, the actual difference, the determinate
content, finds itself outside the ego, belonging entirely to the general objects (EG
413, Zusatz). Before sense-certainty, the egos object is the natural soul itself,
what the ego was but no longer is in its presently evolved shape. Recall that the
ego is the sublation of the soul. Hegel states: The ego, the reflection of the soul
into itself, separates this material from itself, and in the first instance gives it the
determination of being (EG 418). By confronting the natural soul and denying
its suffocating restriction to the corporeal, the ego attains its own independence,
no longer belonging to the soul but to itself. That is why Hegel compares
the ego to light which manifests another as well as itself (EG 413). In the sense
that the ego reveals itself to itself, its other is also revealed to itself as an independent
shape, its dark counterpart. Because the ego thinks in a form that is now
proper to it, its determinations are no longer of the soul but are determinations of
consciousness. For these reasons, Hegel attaches greater potency to the conscious
ego, which now has the capacity to confront the manifold of objects while the
natural soul remains entombed within its childlike unity of internality.
hegels philosophical psychology 111
What is clear is that the ego graduates from its natural determinacy to determinant
freedom, but being only a simple formal individuality, it has a long trek
till it achieves its truth. Hegel states in the Encyclopaedia that the goal of spirit as
consciousness is to raise its self-certainty to truth (EG 416). Like the souls progressive
unfolding, this requires spirit to advance through a series of shapes beginning
with (a) consciousness as such, where sense, perception, and understanding
have a general external object, then (b) self-consciousness, where desire, self-recognition,
and universal self-consciousness have the ego as its general object, culminating
in (c ) reason as the unity of consciousness and self-consciousness
determined in and for itselfthe Concept of Spirit (EG 417).
Like the natural souls initial apprehension of its immediacy, Hegel consistently
views the initiation of consciousness as the manifestation of the sheer
being of [a] thing (PS 91) to a subject that only knows its simple and immediate
sense-certainty. From the Phenomenology, Hegel shows that sense-certainty
is nothing more than the immediate experience of an empty or abstract yet concrete
content as knowledge of the immediate or of what simply is (PS 90).
As an immediate connection, consciousness is I , nothing more, a pure This;
. . . [a] single item (PS 91). In the Encyclopaedia, Hegel says virtually the same
thing: Initially, consciousness is immediate . . . having being . . . as immediately
singular (EG 418). And in the Berlin Phenomenology,22 he tells us, [W]e are
conscious of something, of a general object, of immediate general objects i.e. of
the sensuous being of general objects (BP 334).
Consciousness as such is sensuous consciousness of a presence or impression
with spatial and temporal singularity, simply the here and now. But as
Hegel continues to describe this process: Strictly speaking this belongs to intuition
(EG 418). Here we may see the inextricable interrelatedness between
consciousness and the psychological operations of theoretical spirit that preoccupies
Hegels later psychological analysis of the ego. The ego senses that something
is external to it by reflecting into itself, thus separating the material from
itself and thereby giving it the determination of being.
Hegel sees three primary stages of consciousness: (a) sensuous, (b) perceptive,
and (c ) understanding, with consciousness itself being the first of three developmental
stages of the phenomenological unfolding of spirit resulting in selfconsciousness
and reason respectively. In immediate sensuousnessthe empty or
abstract recognition of being, consciousness then proceeds to grasp the essence of
the object, which it accomplishes through perception. The essence becomes the
general object of perceptive consciousness where singularity is referred to universality.
There is in fact a multiplicity of relations, reflectional-determinations, and
range of objects with their many properties that perceptive consciousness apprehends,
discerns, and brings into acuity (EG 419). Having mediated the immediacy
of sense-certainty, sensuous thought-determinations are brought into
relation with concrete connections to universals, which constitutes knowledge
(EG 420). This linking of singulars to universals is what Hegel calls a mixture
that contains their mutual contradictions (EG 421). Because singularity at this
112 THE UNCONSCIOUS ABYSS
juncture is fused with universality, contradictions are superceded in understanding
consciousness. Understanding consciousness is the unity of the singular and the
universal in which the general object is now raised to the appearance of being for
the ego. In the next stage, self-consciousness arises where the ego takes itself as its
own object, and the process continues until spirit wins its truth in pure reason.
In the Berlin Phenomenology, Hegel offers further elaboration on four distinct
aspects of consciousness including (a) everyday consciousness, (b) empirical consciousness,
(c ) ordinary consciousness, and (d ) comprehending consciousness.23
Everyday consciousness is simply the subjects relation to objects or elements of
experience, such as sensations, perceptions, etc. When Hegel refers to empirical
consciousness, the general object of inquiry becomes the subjects conscious experience
itself, which gets further elaboration in his psychology which is an analytical
examination of consciousness in general. What Hegel calls ordinary
consciousness is the model of consciousness he associates with Kant and Fichte in
which there is always a limit imposed upon the ego and its claim to knowledge,
as opposed to comprehending consciousness, which is the consciousness that
constitutes the basis of his exposition in the Encyclopaedia.
Hegels exposition of consciousness is essentially an exposition of the functions
of the ego, which Freud, although conceived differently, also finds as the
object of science:
We wish to make the ego the matter of our enquiry, our very own ego. But is
that possible? After all, the ego is in its very essence a subject; how can it be
made into an object?Well, there is no doubt that it can be. The ego can take
itself as an object, can treat itself like other objects, can observe itself, criticize
itself, and do Heaven knows what with itself. (SE, 22, 58)
With this assessment Hegel would most certainly agree, with the addition that
the completion of science requires that the ego no longer view itself as an object.
Both Hegel and Freud were preoccupied with the science of subjectivity and articulating
the universal processes that govern mental functioning. It is for these
reasons that psychology becomes an essential ingredient in our appreciation of
the abyss and why Hegel needed to address the psychological processes of intelligence
within his Philosophy of Spirit. Having offered a preparatory survey of
Hegels theory of consciousness, we may now examine the character of the diverse
psychological operations of the ego that becomes the subject matter of theoretical
spirit. Because of the intimate relation between the psychological
processes of intelligence and the unconscious, we will be able to recognize the
ground that justifies the reflections, transitions, and logical operations of thought.