It is natural to suppose that, before philosophy
enters upon its subject proper — namely,
the actual knowledge of what truly is — it
is necessary to come first to an understanding
concerning knowledge, which is looked upon
as the instrument by which to take possession
of the Absolute, or as the means through which
to get a sight of it.
The apprehension seems legitimate, on the
one hand that there may be various kinds of
knowledge, among which one might be better
adapted than another for the attainment of
our purpose — and thus a wrong choice is
possible: on the other hand again that, since
knowing is a faculty of a definite kind and
with a determinate range, without the more
precise determination of its nature and limits
we might take hold on clouds of error instead
of the heaven of truth.
This apprehensiveness is sure to pass even
into the conviction that the whole enterprise
which sets out to secure for consciousness
by means of knowledge what exists per se,
is in its very nature absurd; and that between
knowledge and the Absolute there lies a boundary
which completely cuts off the one from the
other.
For if knowledge is the instrument by which
to get possession of absolute Reality, the
suggestion immediately occurs that the application
of an instrument to anything does not leave
it as it is for itself, but rather entails
in the process, and has in view, a moulding
and alteration of it.
Or, again, if knowledge is not an instrument
which we actively employ, but a kind of passive
medium through which the light of the truth
reaches us, then here, too, we do not receive
it as it is in itself, but as it is through
and in this medium.
In either case we employ a means which immediately
brings about the very opposite of its own
end; or, rather, the absurdity lies in making
use of any means at all.
It seems indeed open to us to find in the
knowledge of the way in which the instrument
operates, a remedy for this parlous state;
for thereby it becomes possible to remove
from the result the part which, in our idea
of the Absolute received through that instrument,
belongs to the instrument, and thus to get
the truth in its purity.
But this improvement would, as a matter of
fact, only bring us back to the point where
we were before.
If we take away again from a definitely formed
thing that which the instrument has done in
the shaping of it, then the thing (in this
case the Absolute) stands before us once more
just as it was previous to all this trouble,
which, as we now see, was superfluous.
If the Absolute were only to be brought on
the whole nearer to us by this agency, without
any change being wrought in it, like a bird
caught by a limestick, it would certainly
scorn a trick of that sort, if it were not
in its very nature, and did it not wish to
be, beside us from the start.
For a trick is what knowledge in such a case
would be, since by all its busy toil and trouble
it gives itself the air of doing something
quite different from bringing about a relation
that is merely immediate, and so a waste of
time to establish.
Or, again, if the examination of knowledge,
which we represent as a medium, makes us acquainted
with the law of its refraction, it is likewise
useless to eliminate this refraction from
the result.
For knowledge is not the divergence of the
ray, but the ray itself by which the truth
comes in contact with us; and if this be removed,
the bare direction or the empty place would
alone be indicated.
Meanwhile, if the fear of falling into error
introduces an element of distrust into science,
which without any scruples of that sort goes
to work and actually does know, it is not
easy to understand why, conversely, a distrust
should not be placed in this very distrust,
and why we should not take care lest the fear
of error is not just the initial error.
As a matter of fact, this fear presupposes
something, indeed a great deal, as truth,
and supports its scruples and consequences
on what should itself be examined beforehand
to see whether it is truth.
It starts with ideas of knowledge as an instrument,
and as a medium; and presupposes a distinction
of ourselves from this knowledge.
More especially it takes for granted that
the Absolute stands on one side, and that
knowledge on the other side, by itself and
cut off from the Absolute, is still something
real; in other words, that knowledge, which,
by being outside the Absolute, is certainly
also outside truth, is nevertheless true — a
position which, while calling itself fear
of error, makes itself known rather as fear
of the truth.
This conclusion comes from the fact that the
Absolute alone is true or that the True is
alone absolute, It may be set aside by making
the distinction that a know ledge which does
not indeed know the Absolute as science wants
to do, is none the less true too; and that
knowledge in general, though it may possibly
be incapable of grasping the Absolute, can
still be capable of truth of another kind.
But we shall see as we proceed that random
talk like this leads in the long run to a
confused distinction between the absolute
truth and a truth of some other sort, and
that “absolute”, “knowledge”, and
so on, are words which presuppose a meaning
that has first to be got at.
With suchlike useless ideas and expressions
about knowledge, as an instrument to take
hold of the Absolute, or as a medium through
which we have a glimpse of truth, and so on
(relations to which all these ideas of a knowledge
which is divided from the Absolute and an
Absolute divided from knowledge in the last
resort lead), we need not concern ourselves.
Nor need we trouble about the evasive pretexts
which create the incapacity of science out
of the presupposition of such relations, in
order at once to be rid of the toil of science,
and to assume the air of serious and zealous
effort about it.
Instead of being troubled with giving answers
to all these, they may be straightway rejected
as adventitious and arbitrary ideas; and the
use which is here made of words like “absolute”,"knowledge”,
as also “objective” and “subjective”,
and innumerable others, whose meaning is assumed
to be familiar to everyone, might well be
regarded as so much deception.
For to give out that their significance is
universally familiar and that everyone indeed
possesses their notion, rather looks like
an attempt to dispense with the only important
matter, which is just to give this notion.
With better right, on the contrary, we might
spare ourselves the trouble of talking any
notice at all of such ideas and ways of talking
which would have the effect of warding off
science altogether; for they make a mere empty
show of knowledge which at once vanishes when
science comes on the scene.
But science, in the very fact that it comes
on the scene, is itself a phenomenon; its
“coming on the scene” is not yet itself
carried out in all the length and breadth
of its truth.
In this regard, it is a matter of indifference
whether we consider that it (science) is the
phenomenon because it makes its appearance
alongside another kind of knowledge, or call
that other untrue knowledge its process of
appearing.
Science, however, must liberate itself from
this phenomenality, and it can only do so
by turning against it.
For science cannot simply reject a form of
knowledge which is not true, and treat this
as a common view of things, and then assure
us that itself is an entirely different kind
of knowledge, and holds the other to be of
no account at all; nor can it appeal to the
fact that in this other there are presages
of a better.
By giving that assurance it would declare
its force and value to lie in its bare existence;
but the untrue knowledge appeals likewise
to the fact that it is, and assures us that
to it science is nothing.
One barren assurance, however, is of just
as much value as another.
Still less can science appeal to the presages
of a better, which are to be found present
in untrue knowledge and are there pointing
the way towards science; for it would, on
the one hand, be appealing again in the same
way to a merely existent fact; and, on the
other, it would be appealing to itself, to
the way in which it exists in untrue knowledge,
i.e. to a bad form of its own existence, to
its appearance, rather than to its real and
true nature (an und für sich).
For this reason we shall here undertake the
exposition of knowledge as a phenomenon.
Now because this exposition has for its object
only phenomenal knowledge, the exposition
itself seems not to be science, free, self-moving
in the shape proper to itself, but may, from
this point of view, be taken as the pathway
of the natural consciousness which is pressing
forward to true knowledge.
Or it can be regarded as the path of the soul,
which is traversing the series of its own
forms of embodiment, like stages appointed
for it by its own nature, that it may possess
the clearness of spiritual life when, through
the complete experience of its own self, it
arrives at the knowledge of what it is in
itself.
Natural consciousness will prove itself to
be only knowledge in principle or not real
knowledge.
Since, however, it immediately takes itself
to be the real and genuine knowledge, this
pathway has a negative significance for it;
what is a realization of the notion of knowledge
means for it rather the ruin and overthrow
of itself; for on this road it loses its own
truth.
Because of that, the road can be looked on
as the path of doubt, or more properly a highway
of despair.
For what happens there is not what is usually
understood by doubting, a jostling against
this or that supposed truth, the outcome of
which is again a disappearance in due course
of the doubt and a return to the former truth,
so that at the end the matter is taken as
it was before.
On the contrary, that pathway is the conscious
insight into the untruth of the phenomenal
knowledge, for which that is the most real
which is after all only the unrealized notion.
On that account, too, this thoroughgoing skepticism
is not what doubtless earnest zeal for truth
and science fancies it has equipped itself
with in order to be ready to deal with them
— viz. the resolve, in science, not to deliver
itself over to the thoughts of others on their
mere authority, but to examine everything
for itself, and only follow its own conviction,
or, still better, to produce everything itself
and hold only its own act for true.
The series of shapes, which consciousness
traverses on this road, is rather the detailed
history of the process of training and educating
consciousness itself up to the level of science.
That resolve presents this mental development
(Bildung) in the simple form of an intended
purpose, as immediately finished and complete,
as having taken place; this pathway, on the
other hand, is, as opposed to this abstract
intention, or untruth, the actual carrying
out of that process of development.
To follow one's own conviction is certainly
more than to hand oneself over to authority;
but by the conversion of opinion held on authority
into opinion held out of personal conviction,
the content of what is held is not necessarily
altered, and truth has not thereby taken the
place of error.
If we stick to a system of opinion and prejudice
resting on the authority of others, or upon
personal conviction, the one differs from
the other merely in the conceit which animates
the latter.
Skepticism, directed to the whole compass
of phenomenal consciousness, on the contrary,
makes mind for the first time qualified to
test what truth is; since it brings about
a despair regarding what are called natural
views, thoughts, and opinions, which it is
matter of indifference to call personal or
belonging to others, and with which the consciousness,
that proceeds straight away to criticize and
test, is still filled and hampered, thus being,
as a matter of fact, incapable of what it
wants to undertake.
The completeness of the forms of unreal consciousness
will be brought about precisely through the
necessity of the advance and the necessity
of their connection with one another.
To make this comprehensible we may remark,
by way of preliminary, that the exposition
of untrue consciousness in its untruth is
not a merely negative process.
Such a one-sided view of it is what the natural
consciousness generally adopts; and a knowledge,
which makes this one-sidedness its essence,
is one of those shapes assumed by incomplete
consciousness which falls into the course
of the inquiry itself and will come before
us there.
For this view is skepticism, which always
sees in the result only pure nothingness,
and abstracts from the fact that this nothing
is determinate, is the nothing of that out
of which it comes as a result.
Nothing, however, is only, in fact, the true
result, when taken as the nothing of what
it comes from; it is thus itself a determinate
nothing, and has a content.
The skepticism which ends with the abstraction
“nothing” or “emptiness” can advance
from this not a step farther, but must wait
and see whether there is possibly anything
new offered, and what that is — in order
to cast it into the same abysmal void.
When once, on the other hand, the result is
apprehended, as it truly is, as determinate
negation, a new form has thereby immediately
arisen; and in the negation the transition
is made by which the progress through the
complete succession of forms comes about of
itself.
The goal, however, is fixed for knowledge
just as necessarily as the succession in the
process.
The terminus is at that point where knowledge
is no longer compelled to go beyond itself,
where it finds its own self, and the notion
corresponds to the object and the object to
the notion.
The progress towards this goal consequently
is without a halt, and at no earlier stage
is satisfaction to be found.
That which is confined to a life of nature
is unable of itself to go beyond its immediate
existence; but by something other than itself
it is forced beyond that; and to be thus wrenched
out of its setting is its death.
Consciousness, however, is to itself its own
notion; thereby it immediately transcends
what is limited, and, since this latter belongs
to it, consciousness transcends its own self.
Along with the particular there is at the
same time set up the “beyond”, were this
only, as in spatial intuition, beside what
is limited.
Consciousness, therefore, suffers this violence
at its own hands; it destroys its own limited
satisfaction.
When feeling of violence, anxiety for the
truth may well withdraw, and struggle to preserve
for itself that which is in danger of being
lost.
But it can find no rest.
Should that anxious fearfulness wish to remain
always in unthinking indolence, thought will
agitate the thoughtlessness, its restlessness
will disturb that indolence.
Or let it take its stand as a form of sentimentality
which assures us it finds everything good
in its kind, and this assurance likewise will
suffer violence at the hands of reason, which
finds something not good just because and
in so far as it is a kind.
Or, again, fear of the truth may conceal itself
from itself and others behind the pretext
that precisely burning zeal for the very truth
makes it so difficult, nay impossible, to
find any other truth except that of which
alone vanity is capable — that of being
ever so much cleverer than any ideas, which
one gets from oneself or others, could make
possible.
This sort of conceit which understands how
to belittle every truth and turn away from
it back into itself, and gloats over this
its own private understanding, which always
knows how to dissipate every possible thought,
and to find, instead of all the content, merely
the barren Ego — this is a satisfaction
which must be left to itself; for it flees
the universal and seeks only an isolated existence
on its own account (Fürsichseyn).
As the foregoing has been stated, provisionally
and in general, concerning the manner and
the necessity Of the process of the inquiry,
it may also be of further service to make
some observations regarding the method of
carrying this out.
This exposition, viewed as a process of relating
science to phenomenal knowledge, and as an
inquiry and critical examination into the
reality of knowing, does not seem able to
be effected without some presupposition which
is laid down as an ultimate criterion.
For an examination consists in applying an
accepted standard, and, on the final agreement
or disagreement therewith of what is tested,
deciding whether the latter is right or wrong;
and the standard in general, and so science,
were this the criterion, is thereby accepted
as the essence or inherently real (Ausich).
But, here,. where science first appears on
the scene, neither science nor any sort of
standard has justified itself as the essence
or ultimate reality; and without this no examination
seems able to be instituted.
This contradiction and the removal of it will
become more definite if , to begin with, we
call to mind the abstract determinations of
knowledge and of truth as they are found in
consciousness.
Consciousness, we find, distinguishes from
itself something, to which at the same time
it relates itself; or, to use the current
expression, there is something for consciousness;
and the determinate form of this process of
relating, or of there being something for
a consciousness, is knowledge.
But from this being for another we distinguish
being in itself or per se; what is related
to knowledge is likewise distinguished from
it, and posited as also existing outside this
relation; the aspect of being per se or in
itself is called Truth.
What really lies in these determinations does
not further concern us here; for since the
object of our inquiry is phenomenal knowledge.,
its determinations are also taken up, in the
first instance, as they are immediately offered
to us.
And they are offered to us very much in the
way we have just stated.
If now our inquiry deals with the truth of
knowledge, it appears that we are inquiring
what knowledge is in itself.
But in this inquiry knowledge is our object,
it is for us; and the essential nature (Ansich)
of knowledge, were this to come to light,
would be rather its being for us: what we
should assert to be its essence would rather
be, not the truth of knowledge, but only our
knowledge of it.
The essence or the criterion would lie in
us; and that which was to be compared with
this standard, and on which a decision was
to be passed as a result of this comparison,
would not necessarily have to recognize that
criterion.
But the nature of the object which we are
examining surmounts this separation, or semblance
of separation, and presupposition.
Consciousness furnishes its own criterion
in itself, and the inquiry will thereby be
a comparison of itself with its own self ; for
the distinction, just made, falls inside itself.
In consciousness there is one element for
an other, or, in general, consciousness implicates
the specific character of the moment of knowledge.
At the same time this “other” is to consciousness
not merely for it, but also outside this relation,
or has a being in itself, i.e. there is the
moment of truth.
Thus in what consciousness inside itself declares
to be the essence or truth we have the standard
which itself sets up, and by which we are
to measure its knowledge.
Suppose we call knowledge the notion, and
the essence or truth “being” or the object,
then the examination consists in seeing whether
the notion corresponds with the object.
But if we call the inner nature of the object,
or what it is in itself, the notion, and,
on the other side, understand by object the
notion qua object, i.e. the way the notion
is for an other, then the examination consists
in our seeing whether the object corresponds
to its own notion.
It is clear, of course, that both of these
processes are the same.
The essential fact, however, to be borne in
mind throughout the whole inquiry is that
both these moments, notion and object, “being
for another” and “being in itself”,
themselves fall within that knowledge which
we are examining.
Consequently we do not require to bring standards
with us, nor to apply our fancies and thoughts
in the inquire; and just by our leaving these
aside we are enabled to treat and discuss
the subject as it actually is in itself and
for itself, as it is in its complete reality.
But not only in this respect, that notion
and object, the criterion and what is to be
tested, are ready to hand in consciousness
itself, is any addition of ours superfluous,
but we are also spared the trouble of comparing
these two and of making an examination in
the strict sense of the term; so that in this
respect, too, since consciousness tests and
examines itself, all we are left to do is
simply and solely to look on.
For consciousness is, on the one hand, consciousness
of the object, on the other, consciousness
of itself; consciousness of what to it is
true, and consciousness of its knowledge of
that truth.
Since both are for the same consciousness,
it is itself their comparison; it is the same
consciousness that decides and knows whether
its knowledge of the object corresponds with
this object or not.
The object, it is true, appears only to be
in such wise for consciousness as consciousness
knows it.
Consciousness does not seem able to get, so
to say, behind it as it is, not for consciousness,
but in itself, and consequently seems also
unable to test knowledge by it.
But just because consciousness has, in general,
knowledge of an object, there is already present
the distinction that the inherent nature,
what the object is in itself, is one thing
to consciousness, while knowledge, or the
being of the object for consciousness, is
another moment.
Upon this distinction, which is present as
a fact, the examination turns.
Should both, when thus compared, not correspond,
consciousness seems bound to alter its knowledge,
in order to make it fit the object.
But in the alteration of the knowledge, the
object itself also, in point of fact, is altered;
for the knowledge which existed was essentially
a knowledge of the object; with change in
the knowledge, the object also becomes different,
since it belonged essentially to this knowledge.
Hence consciousness comes to find that what
formerly to it was the essence is not what
is per se, or what was per se was only per
se for consciousness.
Since, then, in the case of its object consciousness
finds its knowledge not corresponding with
this object, the object likewise fails to
hold out; or the standard for examining is
altered when that, whose criterion this standard
was to be, does not hold its ground in the
course of the examination; and the examination
is not only an examination of knowledge, but
also of the criterion used in the process.
This dialectic process which consciousness
executes on itself — on its knowledge as
well as on its object — in the sense that
out of it the new and true object arises,
is precisely, what is termed Experience.
In this connection, there is a moment in the
process just mentioned which should be brought
into more decided prominence, and by which
a new light is cast on the scientific aspect
of the following exposition.
Consciousness knows something; this something
is the essence or is per se.
This object, however, is also the per se,
the inherent reality, for consciousness.
Hence comes ambiguity of this truth.
Consciousness, as we see, has now two objects:
one is the first per se, the second is the
existence for consciousness of this per se.
The last object appears at first sight to
be merely the reflection of consciousness
into itself, i.e. an idea not of an object,
but solely of its knowledge of that first
object.
But, as was already indicated, by that very
process the first object is altered; it ceases
to be what is per se, and becomes consciously
something which is per se only for consciousness.
Consequently, then, what this real per se
is for consciousness is truth: which, however,
means that this is the essential reality,
or the object which consciousness has.
This new object contains the nothingness of
the first; the new object is the experience
concerning that first object.
In this treatment of the course of experience,
there is an element in virtue of which it
does not seem to be in agreement with what
is ordinarily understood by experience.
The transition from the first object and the
knowledge of it to the other object, in regard
to which we say we have had experience, was
so stated that the knowledge of the first
object, the existence for consciousness of
the first ens per se, is itself to be the
second object.
But it usually seems that we learn by experience
the untruth of our first notion by appealing
to some other object which we may happen to
find casually and externally; so that, in
general, what we have is merely the bare and
simple apprehension of what is in and for
itself.
On the view above given, however, the new
object is seen to have come about by a transformation
or conversion of consciousness itself.
This way of looking at the matter is our doing,
what we contribute; by its means the series
of experiences through which consciousness
passes is lifted into a scientifically constituted
sequence, but this does not exist for the
consciousness we contemplate and consider.
We have here, however, the same sort of circumstance,
again, of which we spoke a short time ago
when dealing with the relation of this exposition
to skepticism, viz. that the result which
at any time comes about in the case of an
untrue mode of knowledge cannot possibly collapse
into an empty nothing, but must necessarily
be taken as the negation of that of which
it is a result — a result which contains
what truth the preceding mode of knowledge
has in it.
In the present instance the position takes
this form: since what at first appeared as
object is reduced, when it passes into consciousness,
to what knowledge takes it to be, and the
implicit nature, the real in itself, becomes
what this entity per se, is for consciousness;
this latter is the new object, whereupon there
appears also a new mode or embodiment of consciousness,
of which the essence is something other than
that of the preceding mode.
It is this circumstance which carries forward
the whole succession of the modes or attitudes
of consciousness in their own necessity.
It is only this necessity, this origination
of the new object — which offers itself
to consciousness without consciousness knowing
how it comes by it — that to us, who watch
the process, is to be seen going on, so to
say, behind its back.
Thereby there enters into its process a moment
of being per se, or of being for us, which
is not expressly presented to that consciousness
which is in the grip of experience itself.
The content, however, of what we see arising,
exists for it, and we lay hold of and comprehend
merely its formal character, i.e. its bare
origination; for it, what has thus arisen
has merely the character of object, while,
for us, it appears at the same time as a process
and coming into being.
In virtue of that necessity this pathway to
science is itself eo ipso science, and is,
moreover, as regards its content, Science
of the Experience of Consciousness.
The experience which consciousness has concerning
itself can, by its essential principle, embrace
nothing less than the entire system of consciousness,
the whole realm of the truth of mind, and
in such wise that the moments of truth are
set forth in the specific and peculiar character
they here possess — i.e. not as abstract
pure moments, but as they are for consciousness,
or as consciousness itself appears in its
relation to them, and in virtue of which they
are moments of the whole, are embodiments
or modes of consciousness.
In pressing forward to its true form of existence,
consciousness will come to a point at which
it lays aside its semblance of being hampered
with what is foreign to it, with what is only
for it and exists as an other; it will reach
a position where appearance becomes identified
with essence, where, in consequence, its exposition
coincides with just this very point, this
very stage of the science proper of mind.
And, finally, when it grasps this its own
essence, it will connote the nature of absolute
knowledge itself.
