Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit

Phenomenology: the study of “phenomena,” i. e Phenomenology: the study of “phenomena,” i.e. objects of conscious experience; the study of how a consciousness experiences things

Spirit: “‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’” (§177)

Being, pure being — without further determination.

Being, pure being — without further determination Being, pure being — without further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself and also not unequal with respect to another; it has no difference within it, nor any outwardly. If any determination or content were posited in it as distinct, or if it were posited by this determination or content as distinct from an other, it would thereby fail to hold fast to its purity. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure empty intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or, it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing.

Nothing, pure nothingness; it is simple equality with itself, complete emptiness, complete absence of determination and content; lack of all distinction within. — In so far as mention can be made here of intuiting and thinking, it makes a difference whether something or nothing is being intuited or thought. To intuit or to think nothing has therefore a meaning; the two are distinguished and so nothing is (concretely exists) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is the empty intuiting and thinking itself, like pure being. — Nothing is therefore the same determination or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as what pure being is.

Pure being and pure nothing are therefore the same Pure being and pure nothing are therefore the same. The truth is neither being nor nothing, but rather that being has passed over into nothing and nothing into being — “has passed over,” not passes over. But the truth is just as much that they are not without distinction; it is rather that they are not the same, that they are absolutely distinct yet equally unseparated and inseparable, and that each immediately vanishes in its opposite. Their truth is therefore this movement of the immediate vanishing of the one into the other: becoming, a movement in which the two are distinguished, but by a distinction which has just as immediately dissolved itself. (Science of Logic, 21.69-21.70)

Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged. (§178)

Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.

(1) Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for (2) another; that is, it exists only in (3) being acknowledged.

Descartes: “I am, I exist Descartes: “I am, I exist.” —> “I am therefore, speaking precisely, only a thinking thing, a mind, or a soul, or an intellect, or a reason.” Hegel: We are, we exist through each other. —> We are social beings. Our being includes a demand for universal recognition of all by all.

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” (§186)

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another (§187) —> “pure being-for-self” (§187)

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” (§189)

The truth of [the lord’s] independent consciousness is accordingly the servile consciousness of the bondsman. (§193)

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” —> 1st reversal: the truth of lordship is bondage —> “the thing” (§191)

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” —> 1st reversal: the truth of lordship is bondage —> “the thing” —> lord and thing: enjoyment; bondsman and thing: work (§190)

Through work … the bondsman becomes conscious of what he truly is Through work … the bondsman becomes conscious of what he truly is. Work … is desire held in check, fleetingness staved off; in other words, work forms and shapes the thing. The negative relation to the object becomes its form and something permanent, because it is precisely for the worker that the object has independence. This negative middle term or the formative activity is at the same time the individuality or pure being-for-self of consciousness which now, in the work outside of it, acquires an element of permanence. It is in this way, therefore, that consciousness, qua worker, comes to see in the independent being [of the object] its own independence. (§195)

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” —> 1st reversal: the truth of lordship is bondage —> “the thing” —> lord and thing: enjoyment; bondsman and thing: work —> 2nd reversal: the truth of bondage is independence