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hegel_phenomenology_of_spirit_preface_part_1.mp3
Preface
1. In the preface to a philosophical work, it is customary for the author to give an
explanation - namely, an explanation of his purpose in writing the book, his motivations
behind it, and the relations it bears to other previous or contemporary treatments of the
same topics - but for a philosophical work, this seems not only superfluous but in light of
the nature of the subject matter, even inappropriate and counter productive. For whatever
it might be suitable to say about philosophy in a preface - for instance, to give some
historical instruction about the biases and the standpoint of the text, or some talk about
the general content and the results together with a set of scattered assertions and
assurances about the truth - none of these can count as the way to present philosophical
truth. - Moreover, because philosophy essentially exists in the element of universality,
which encompasses the particular within itself, it might seem that in philosophy, indeed
even more so than in the other sciences, that what is salient about its subject matter, even
its perfect essence, would be expressed in the goal of the work and in its final results, and
that the way the project is in fact carried out would be what is inessential. In contrast, if a
person were to have only a general notion of, for example, anatomy, or, to put it roughly,
if he were to have an acquaintance with the parts of the body taken in terms of their
lifeless existence, nobody would thereby think that he has come into full possession of
the salient subject matter of that science, which is to say, its content. One would think
that in addition he would have to go to the trouble to pay attention to the particularities of
the science. - Furthermore, that kind of an aggregation of little bits and pieces of
information has no real right be called science, and a conversation about its purpose and
other such generalities would be in no way distinct from the ordinary historical and
uncomprehending way in which the content, that is, these nerves and muscles, and so
forth, is itself discussed. In the case of philosophy, this would give rise to the following
incongruity, namely, that if philosophy were indeed to make use of such a method, then it
would have shown itself to be incapable of grasping the truth.
2. Determining the relation that a philosophical work professes to bear vis-à-vis other
efforts at dealing with the same object also introduces an extraneous interest, and it
thereby merely renders obscure what is supposed to be at stake in taking cognizance of
the truth. The more that conventional opinion holds that the opposition between the true
and the false is itself fixed and set, the more that it customarily expects to find itself in
either agreement or in contradiction with any given philosophical system, and, if so, then
in any explanation of such a system, the more it will merely see the one or the other. It
does not comprehend the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive
development of truth as much as it sees merely contradiction within that diversity. The
bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and one might say that the former is
refuted by the latter. Likewise, by virtue of the fruit, the blossom itself may be declared
to be a false existence of the plant, since the fruit emerges as the blossom's truth as it
comes to replace the blossom itself. These forms are not merely distinguished from each
other, but, as incompatible with each other, they also supplant each other. However, at
the same time their fluid nature makes them into moments of an organic unity within
which they are not only not in conflict with each other. Rather, one is equally as
necessary as the other, and it is this equal necessity which alone constitutes the life of the
whole. However, in part, contradiction with regard to a philosophical system does not
usually comprehend itself in this way, and, in part, the consciousness which apprehends
the contradiction generally neither knows how to free the contradiction from its one-
sidedness, nor how to sustain it as free-standing by taking cognizance of its reciprocally
necessary moments, which themselves take shape as conflicts and as apparent
incompatibilities.
3. Those who demand both such explanations and their satisfactions may well look as if
they are really in pursuit of what is essential. Where else could the inner core of a
philosophical work be better expressed than in its purposes and results, and how else
could this be more determinately discerned than by differentiating it from all the other
things that this age produces in the same sphere? But if that sort of activity is supposed
to count for more than just the beginning of cognition, that is, if it is supposed to count as
actual cognition itself, then it is in fact to be reckoned as being little more than a
contrivance for avoiding what is really at stake, that is, as an attempt to combine the
semblance of both seriousness and effort while actually sparing oneself of either
seriousness or effort. - This is so because the subject matter is not exhausted in its aims;
rather, it is exhaustively treated when it is worked out. Nor is the result which is reached
the actual whole itself; rather, the whole is the result together with the way the result
comes to be. The aim on its own is the lifeless universal in the way that the tendency of
the work itself is a mere drive that still lacks actuality; the unadorned result is just the
corpse that has left the tendency behind. - Likewise, differentiatedness is to a greater
degree the limit of the thing at stake. It is where the thing which is at stake ceases, that is,
it is what that thing is not. To trouble oneself with such purposes or results, or to make
distinctions and pass judgments on one or the other is thus an easier task than it might
seem to be. Instead of occupying itself with what is at stake, this kind of activity has
always thereby gone one step beyond it. Instead of dwelling on what is at stake and
forgetting itself in it, that sort of knowledge is always grasping at something else; it
persists in being at one with itself. The easiest thing of all is to pass judgment on what
is substantial and meaningful. It is much more difficult to get a real grip on it, and what
is the most difficult of all is both to grasp what unites each of them and to give a full
exposition of what that is.
4. The beginning both of cultural maturity and of working one's way out of the
immediacy of substantial life must always be done by acquainting oneself with universal
principles and points of view. Having done that, one can then work oneself up to the
thought of what is stake and, of no less importance, to giving reasons for supporting or
refuting one's thoughts on those matters. One must apprehend the subject matter's
concrete and rich fullness in terms of its determinateness, and one must know how both
to provide an orderly account of it and to render a serious judgment about it. However, if
one is to begin to work oneself all the way up to the point of cultural maturity, one will
first of all also have to carve out some space for the seriousness of a fulfilled life. This in
turn will lead one to the experience of what is truly at stake, so that even when the
seriousness of the concept has gone into the depths of what is at stake, this kind of
acquaintance and judgment will still retain its proper place in conversation.
5. The true shape in which truth exists can only be the scientific system of that truth. To
participate in the collaborative effort at bringing philosophy nearer to the form of science
- to bring it nearer to the goal where it can lay aside the title of "love of knowledge" and
be actual knowledge - is the task I have set for myself. The inner necessity that
knowledge should be science lies in the nature of knowledge, and the satisfactory
explanation for this inner necessity is solely the exposition of philosophy itself.
However, external necessity, insofar as this is apprehended in a universal manner and
insofar as personal contingencies and individual motivations are set aside, is the same as
the internal necessity which takes on the shape in which time presents the existence of
its moments. To demonstrate that it is now time for philosophy to be elevated into
science would therefore be the only true justification of any attempt that has this as its
aim, because it would demonstrate the necessity of that aim, and, at the same time, it
would be the realization of the aim itself.
6. I know that to posit that the true shape of truth lies in its scientific rigor - or, what is
the same thing, to assert that truth has the element of its existence solely in concepts -
seems to contradict a prevalent idea (along with all that follows from it) whose
pretentiousness matched only by its pervasiveness in the convictions of the present age. It
thus does not seem completely gratuitous to offer an explanation of this contradiction
even though at this stage such an explanation can amount to little more than the same
kind of dogmatic assurance which it opposes. If, that is to say, the true exists only in
what, or rather exists only as what, is at one time called intuition and at another time
called either the immediate knowledge of the absolute, or religion, or being - not at the
center of the divine love, but the being of divine love itself - then, if that is taken as the
point of departure, what is at the same time demanded in the exposition of philosophy is
going to be to a greater degree the very opposite of the form of the concept. The absolute
is not supposed to be conceptually grasped but rather to be felt and intuited. It is not the
concept but the feeling and intuition of the absolute which are supposed to govern what is
said of it.
7. If such a requirement is grasped in its more general context and its appearance is
viewed from the stage at which self-conscious spirit is presently located, then spirit has
gone beyond the substantial life which it had otherwise been leading in the element of
thought - it has gone beyond this immediacy of faith, beyond the satisfaction and security
of the certainty that consciousness had about its reconciliation with the essence, and it has
gone beyond the universal presence, that is, the inner as well as the outer of that essence.
Spirit has not merely gone beyond that to the opposite extreme of a reflection of itself
into itself which is utterly devoid of substance; it has gone beyond that extreme too. Not
only has its essential life been lost to it, it is conscious of this loss and of the finitude that
is its content. Turning itself away from such left-over dregs, spirit, while both confessing
to being mired in wickedness and reviling itself for being so, now demands from
philosophy not knowledge of what spirit is; rather, it demands that it once again attain the
substantiality and the solidity of what is and that it is through philosophy that it attain
this. To meet these needs, philosophy is not supposed so much to unlock substance's
secret and elevate this to self-consciousness - not to bring chaotic consciousness back
both to a well thought-out order and to the simplicity of the concept, but, to a greater
degree, to take what thought has torn asunder and then to stir it all together into a smooth
mélange, to suppress the concept that makes those distinctions, and then to fabricate the
feeling of the essence. What it wants from philosophy is not so much insight as
edification. The beautiful, the holy, the eternal, religion, and love itself are all the bait
required to awaken the craving to bite. What is supposed to sustain and extend the
wealth of that substance is not the concept, but ecstasy, not the cold forward march of the
necessity of the subject matter but instead a kind of inflamed inspiration.
8. Corresponding to this requirement is a laborious and almost petulant zeal to save
mankind from its absorption in the sensuous, the vulgar, and the singular. It wishes to
direct people's eyes to the stars, as if they had totally forgotten the divine and, as if they
were like worms, each and all on the verge of finding satisfaction in mere dirt and water.
There was a time when people had a heaven adorned with a comprehensive wealth of
thoughts and images. The meaning of all existence lay in the thread of light by which it
was bound to heaven and instead of lingering in this present, people's view followed that
thread upwards towards the divine essence; their view directed itself, if one may put it
this way, to an other-worldly present. It was only under duress that spirit's eyes had to be
turned back to what is earthly and to be kept fixed there, and a long time was needed to
introduce clarity into the dullness and confusion lying in the meaning of things in this
world, a kind of clarity which only heavenly things used to have; a long time was needed
both to draw attention to the present as such, an attention that was called experience, and
to make it interesting and to make it matter. - Now it seems that there is the need for the
opposite, that our sense of things is so deeply rooted in the earthly that an equal power is
required to elevate it above all that. Spirit has shown itself to be so impoverished that it
seems to yearn for its refreshment merely in the meager feeling of divinity, very much
like the wanderer in the desert who longs for a simple drink of water. That it now takes
so little to satisfy spirit's needs is the full measure of the magnitude of its loss.
9. All the same, this parsimony vis-à-vis what one receives, or this stinginess vis-à-vis
what one gives, is inappropriate for science. Whoever seeks mere edification, who wants
to surround the diversity of his existence and thought in a kind of fog, and who then
demands an indeterminate enjoyment of this indeterminate divinity, may look wherever
he pleases to find it, and he will quite easily find the resources to enable him both to get
on his high horse and then to rant and rave. However, philosophy must keep up its guard
against the desire to be edifying.
10. Even to a lesser extent must this kind of science-renouncing self-satisfaction claim
that such enthusiasm and obscurantism is itself a bit higher than science. This prophetic
prattle imagines that it resides at the center of things, indeed that it is profundity itself,
and, viewing determinateness (the Horos) with contempt, it intentionally stands aloof
from both the concept and from necessity, which it holds to be a type of reflection at
home in mere finitude. However, just as there is an empty breadth, there is also an empty
depth, just as likewise there is an extension of substance which spills over into finite
diversity without having the power to keep that diversity together - this is an intensity
without content, which, although it makes out as if it were a sheer force without
dispersion, is in fact no more than superficiality itself. The force of spirit is only as great
as its expression, and its depth goes only as deep as it trusts itself to disperse itself and to
lose itself in its explication of itself. - At the same time, if this substantial knowledge,
itself so totally devoid of the concept, pretends to have immersed the very ownness of the
self in the essence and to philosophize in all holiness and truth, then what it is really
doing is just concealing from itself the fact that instead of devoting itself to God, it has,
by spurning all moderation and determinateness, to a greater degree simply given itself
free rein within itself to the contingency of that content and then, within that content,
given free rein to its own arbitrariness. - When the proponents of that view abandon
themselves to the unbounded fermentation of the substance, they suppose that, by
throwing a blanket over self-consciousness and by surrendering all understanding, they
are God's very own, that they are those to whom God imparts wisdom in their sleep.
What they in fact receive and what they give birth to in their sleep are also for that reason
merely dreams.
11. Besides, it is not difficult to see that our own epoch is a time of birth and a transition
to a new period. Spirit has broken with the previous world of its existence and its ways
of thinking; it is now of a mind to let them recede into the past and to immerse itself in
its own work at reshaping itself. To be sure, spirit is never to be conceived at being at
rest but rather as ever advancing. However, just as with a child, who after a long silent
period of nourishment draws his first breath and shatters the gradualness of merely
quantitative growth - it makes a qualitative leap and is born - so too, in bringing itself to
cultural maturity, spirit ripens slowly and quietly into its new shape, dissolving bit by bit
the structure of its previous world, whose tottering condition is only intimated by its
individual symptoms. The kind of frivolity and boredom which chip away at the
established order and the indeterminate presentiment of what is yet unknown are all
harbingers of imminent change. This gradual process of dissolution, which has not
altered the physiognomy of the whole, is interrupted by the break of day, which in a flash
and at a single stroke brings to view the structure of the new world.
12. Yet this newness is no more completely actual than is the newborn child, and it is
essential to bear this in mind. Its immediacy, that is, its concept, is the first to come on
the scene. However little of a building is finished when its foundation has been laid, so
too reaching the concept of the whole is equally as little the whole itself. When we wish
to see an oak with its powerful trunk, its spreading branches, and its mass of foliage, we
are not satisfied if instead we are shown an acorn. In the same way, science, the
crowning glory of a spiritual world, is not completed in its initial stages. The beginning
of a new spirit is the outcome of a widespread revolution in the diversity of forms of
cultural maturation; it is both the prize at the end of a winding path and, equally as much,
is the prize won through much struggle and effort. It is the whole which has returned into
itself from out of its succession and extension and has come to be the simple concept of
itself. The actuality of this simple whole consists in those shapes which, having become
moments of the whole, once again develop themselves anew and give themselves a
shape, but this time within their new element, within the new meaning which itself has
come to be.
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