So far, our in class discussions have come to the
general consensus that the main problem Hegel wishes to address is that the
world seems irrational and rational. Philosophy’s purpose is
partially to show how the world is rational and how we are “at home in the
world”. The task of philosophy is to lead ordinary consciousness to overcome conceptual
tensions that make the world appear irrational. One example of how this happens
is Hegel’s depiction of the three stages in the development of thought:
abstract thinking, dialectical, and speculative. Hegel gives us a rather
traditional role for philosophy, clarify concepts, come up with criteria, and
provide accounts of phenomena and our experiences with genuine explanatory
power. This kind of idea of the purpose for philosophy is shared with a variety
of thinkers from the ancients like Plato to contemporary thinkers like Philip
Kitcher Realism and Scientific Progress, but before I go off on a tangent let’s get back to Hegel.
What is especially unique about Hegel’s view is
his concept of consciousness, which is probably the biggest and most challenging thing for a philosophic theory to explain adequately. Hegel is very concerned with
consciousness becoming aware of itself. He shows us how this is done by discussing
how the realization of self-consciousness is a wrestling for recognition
between individual consciousnesses. Before going further, we should remember that Hegel thinks
that being aware of an object implies some kind of awareness of the self. Hegel’s
idea of self-consciousness is consciousness 1’s awareness of consciousness 2’s
being aware of consciousness 1. For Hegel, implied in this relation is a “struggle
for recognition” that he seems to suggest is necessary, in the strict sense. I think that Hegel
is not merely speculating and pulling things out of his ass here, think about
how animals act when they encounter a baby or any other species which they have
no previous experience with, such as a dolphin meeting a cow or something-sadly I couldn't justify sifting through tons of youtube videos to find an example. Anyway, what I find particularly interesting is that if this “struggle for
recognition” is necessary, what does this tell us about our concepts of
friendship or our relationships with others in general? Hegel implies that all
relationships between consciousness are necessarily an antagonistic competition
for dominance. This suggests a very Rousseau-like version of human nature. Are there genuine cases of friendship or love between
individuals? It seems like Hegel’s view implies that there is not, yet I’m sure
many would contest this conclusion. I find Hegel’s reduction of relationships
between consciousnesses to one kind of relationship unnecessarily restrictive
and lacking evidence to support this reduction. Thoughts? Also here’s a comic.
totally just realized i read the reading for next week on accident
ReplyDeleteYou would do that.
DeleteNow for my comment.
I guess I should start with a vapid compliment about how vaguely interesting your post is and then put a stream of questions and challenges to the post which show a minimal engagement with what is being said, but I never like doing what I should.
First, you wanted to find a youtube video concerning animals meeting each other. The only one I could think of off the top of my head is 'What does the Fox say?' when the fox meets a horse and the song asks how they would communicate.
Second, thing is that you should have probably retroactively edited because I think some of your scripting was lost in the probably copy-pasted paragraphs. Right now it is impossible for me to read without getting confused.
Third, I am unsure if you subject is Hegel's concept of consciousness, which is its definition and such, or what Hegel thinks is the function/activity of consciousness in a world that has more than one consciousness.
Four, you bring up Hegel's two senses of self-consciousness, but drop the later to go on a tangent about the struggle for recognition. I actually would not have thought to compared Hegel's explication of how consciousness interacts with the raw world with Rousseau's explications of human nature in relation to a State of Nature thought experiment. I disagree with you that Hegel reduces the relationship as purely antagonistic because I think Hegel allows for degrees of development. Initial awareness of another consciousness may be a battle for dominance, but as a friendship builds and the conflicts between the consciousnesses resolved, they will find self-love in the other and be true friends when and if they reach the ideal end of their relationship. But what do I know...
Fourth, you say in the beginning that we said in class that Hegel's problem is that the world seems rational and irrational. Personally, I would assume the world cannot appear both rational and irrational simultaneously because (contradictions aside) even if parts made sense alone, as a whole the world would be made irrational by any irrational part.
Fifth, you demand evidence from Hegel and then you go into cases of animals. Hegel's theories about consciousness are not limited technically by the species who has the consciousness. If consciousness is a rational entity, it will understand things in a rational way; this is taken to be evident in the everyday operations of any consciousness. We could run into several problems if we assume that other living beings who encounter the world other than ourselves do not reason in the same way. For instance, is mathematics the same for ducks as it is for mice. Can square circles be contemplated legitmately by turtles? Can I know what it is like to be a bat?
As for the encounters with other consciousnesses, this is far more difficult to demonstrate from the self-evidence from consciousness. I would have to reread more to see if he can make a convincing case for why consciousnesses encounter each other in the ways he describes, primarily the show of recognition.