Hegel's Phenomenology, part II: analysis and commentary

220 Pages·1983·13.4 MB·English

by  Howard P. Kainz

HEGEL'S
PHENOMENOLOGY,
Part II
The Evolution oj Ethical
and Religious Consciousness
to the Absolute Standpoint
Howard P. Kainz
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS, OHIO
LONDON
©Copyright 1983 by Howard P. Kainz
Printed in the United States of America.
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kainz, Howard P.
Hegel's Phenomenology, Part II.
Bibliography: p.
I. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831.
Phanomenologie des Geisles. 2. Spirit. 3. Conscience.
4. Truth. l. Tille.
B2929.K283 1982 193 82-22444
ISBN 0-8214-0677-9
ISBN 0-8214-0738-4 (pbk.)
Table oj Contents
PREFACE Vlll
CONVENTIONS xu
INTRODUCTION TO THE ANALYSIS OF PART II OF HEGEL'S
PHENOMENOLOGY 1
ANALYSIS OF PART II 9
VI. Spirit 11
Introductory Remarks 11
A. Spirit as "True." Objective Ethicality. 13
[Ethical and Legal Consciousness]
a. The Ethical World. Human and Divine Law. Man and Woman 14
[Ethical Consciousness]
b. Ethical Action. Human and Divine Knowledge. Guilt and
Destiny 23
c. The Condition of Right or Legal Status 30
[Legal Consciousness]
Introductory Remarks 30
B. Self-Alienated Spirit. Culture. [Cultural
Consciousness] 35
Introductory Remarks 35
I. The World of Self-Alienated Spirit 38
a. Culture and its Realm of Activity 38
[Economic vs. Political Consciousness]
Introductory Remarks 39
[1. The heroism of flattery] 47
[2. Base flattery] 49
[3. The language of distraughtness] 50
Introductory Remarks 50
[4. The confrontation of the distraught consciousness and the honest
consciousness] 52
b. Faith and Pure Insight 54
[Catholic vs. Secular Consciousness]
Introductory Remarks 54
(1. (a) Faith considered in itself] 59
[ 1. (b) Faith in relation to the actual world of culture] 60
[1. (c) Faith in relation to the attitude of Insight] 61
[2. (a) Insight in itseifJ 61
II. Enlightenment 62
[The Pyrrhic Victory of Insight over Faith]
Introductory Remarks 62
[2 . (b) Insight in relation to the world] 63
a. The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition 64
[2 . (c) Insight in relation to Faith] 64
[2. (c)-I. Insight as inherently one with Faith] 65
[2. (c)-2. Insight as the antithesis of the world of Faith 1 66
b. The Truth of Enlightenment 78
[U tilitarianism 1
III. Absolute Freedom and Terror 83
[Revolutionary Conciousness]
Introductory Remarks 83
C. Spirit That is Certain of Itself. Morality. 92
[Moral Consciousness]
Introductory Remarks 92
a. The Moral View of the World 95
b. Dissemblance or Duplicity 101
c. Conscience. The "Beautiful Soul." Evil and its
Forgiveness 107
Introductory Remarks 107
VII. Religion 125
[Spirit as Self-Conscious or Transcendent]
Introductory Remarks 125
A. N ature-Religion 131
[Intersubjective Self-Consciousness through Nature]
Introductory Remarks 132
a. The Religion of Light [Lichtwesen 1 134
b. Plant and Animal Deification 135
c. The Religious Artisan 136
B. Religion in the Form of Art 138
[Intersubjective Self-Consciousness through Art]
Introductory Remarks 138
a. The Abstract Work of Art 140
b. The Living Work of Art 145
c. The Spiritual Work of Art 147
C. Revealed Religion 154
[Intersubjective Self-Consciousness through Christianity]
Introductory Remarks 154
[a. The Trinity Conceived in its Interiority) 161
[b. The Relations of the Triune Absolute ad extra) 162
[c. Synthesis of the Divine and the Human in a Religious
Community after the Protestant Pattern) 164
Introductory Remarks 164
VIII. Absolute Knowledge 172
'(The Dialectical Comprehension of the Content of Religion]
Introductory Remarks 172
(A. Spirit's Reconciliation of Consciousness and Self-
Consciousness in Conscience] 178
(B. Religion's Reconciliation of Self-Consciousness and
Consciousness in the Christian Community] 180
(C. Unification of the Two Reconciliations in Absolute
Knowledge] 181
ApPENDIX. Some Literary Works Used by Hegel. 187
BIBLIOGRAPHY 194
INDEX 199
Preface
This book is a sequel to my Hegel's Phenomenology, Part I: Ana(ysis and
Commentary and brings to completion my exegesis and interpretation
of the text of the Phenomenology in its entirety. The writing of this sequel
has been accomplished under very different circumstances than had
been the case with its predecessor. When I wrote the previous volume,
there were only a few "commentaries" available-the most useful of
these being, in my opinion, Hyppolite's French commentary. Now the
situation is being reversed. To the works of Hyppolite, Lukacs, Wahl,
Kojeve, and Loewenberg, and Heidegger's commentary on the In
troduction, have been added those of Labarriere, W. Marx (both in Ger
man and in English translation), Becker, Fink, Scheier, Navickas, Nor
man, Shklar, Robinson, Lauer, Westphal, Taylor and Findlay, as well
as my own commentary on the first half; English translations of Hyp
polite and Kojeve; and others are currently in preparation. In addition,
besides the sort of systematical part-by-part treatment that we usually
equate with "commentary" in the strict sense, many useful studies in
German-by Poggler, Bonsiepen, Heinrichs, Gauvin, Fulda, Lim
and others-have been published recently.
One could argue that the prospective commentator on the Phenome
nology who reads too many of these interpretations runs the risk not only
of becoming confused by the often divergent opinions expressed or of
distancing himself too much from the simple meaning that should stand
out from the text, but also of losing his originality and producing a kind
of textbook treatment of the Phenomenology (if such an entity can be ima
gined). But such opinions do not seem to accord well with the spirit of the
Phenomenology, which incorporates so many ideas from other authors that
it occasionally-with regard to Diderot and Fichte, for example
borders on plagiarism, but without losing its originality. And so I do not
share such fears, and have, in fact, immersed myself as much as possible
in the interpretations of others before beginning this book. But in the
end, one must get back to the text, deal with Hegel tete-a-lite and come to
one's own conclusions. A final encounter of this sort was the direct
springboard for this commentary.
PREFACE lX
The format of this book is for the most part similar to that of the pre
vious volume, in which the "Analysis" section, which simply restates as
clearly and systematically as possible Hegel's arguments as they pro
ceed in the Phenomenology, is almost completely separated from the
"Commentary" which is added by way of "footnotes." I have found
from my experience with the previous volume that this separation
has one disadvantage: that some of my readers have taken the
"Commentary" section for footnotes in the usual sense-that is, as
somewhat extraneous to the author's main arguments-and bypassed
it. But there is still, to my mind, a decisive advantage to such a separa
tion with regard to Hegel and in particular with regard to this particular
book by Hegel: Interspersing philosophical ramifications, historical
references, cross-references, literary allusions, interpretive applica
tions, etc., etc., in the course of one's exegesis of the text-especially in
the most complex texts, such as the sections on Insight and Enlighten
ment in the Phenomenology-can (and, for the reader less versed in Hegel,
almost certainly must) distract the reader from Hegel's main arguments
and keep him from following that dialectical movement which is, after all,
the most important thing in that unique book concerned precisely with
the development of consciousness and Spirit. And so by means of this sep
aration I hope to be able to convey more clearly both the structure of
these movements and the additional information about interpretative
nuances, historical and cultural allusions, etc., that are necessary for a
fuller appreciation of Hegel's book. Fortunately, the editors have posi
tioned notes together with text in this volume, thus facilitating use of the
commentary.
In the present volume structural diagrams are utilized to recapitulate
the developments in Part I and also to give an overall view of the move
ments in Part II and the Phenomenology as a whole; references to the
Miller translation, which features a paragraph-by-paragraph number
ing based on Hoffmeister's German edition, are included; and an Ap
pendix offers summaries of certain literary works that Hegel, presum
ing in his nineteenth-century readers an extensive familiarization with
ancient and modern literary works, draws upon extensively in certain
sections of the Phenomenology.
All the quotations from the Phenomenology are my own translations.
Since the various parts of the Phenomenology are so closely tied contextu
ally, terminologically and grammatically with their surrounding parts,
x HEGEL'S PHENOMENOLOGY, PART II
it is difficult to excerpt quotations which are clear and autonomously
meaningful, and so my translations tend to be freer than one would ex
pect to find in a straightforward translation of the whole book; but for
these excerpts the corresponding German texts are added in the Com
mentary section, to assist the reader in his own textual analysis. In using
quotations from other works of Hegel and other German or French
writers and secondary sources in the Commentary, I have used pub
lished English translations wherever usable ones were available; other
wise, I have translated these quotations rather literally in English.
The title of this book is meant to give as much an indication of its con
tents as is possible within the space of a few words. In spite of possible and
unwelcome overtones of "natural selection," I use the word "evolu
tion" instead of" phenomenology" in order to emphasize the difference
of Hegel's Phenomenology, which is concerned primarily with movement
(see K45 ff.), from contemporary phenomenologies, which seem to be
concerned primarily with the eidetic and/or linguistic structures of sub
jective, intersubjective and/or objective experience. "Part II" is merely
a reference to Hegel's own distinction between the" forms of conscious
ness" in the earlier sections of the Phenomenology, and the "forms of the
world" which become paramount in chapters VI-VIII; it is not meant to
indicate any sharp division between the two parts, as suggested by e.g.
Theodore Haering. Also, "ethical consciousness" and "religious con
sciousness" are simply two of the more important developments of
"Spirit" discussed in the second half of the Phenomenology. Anyone famil
iar with Hegel's holistic orientation in philosophizing will not be sur
prised to learn that Hegel also devotes considerable space in these pages
to detailed discussion oflegal consciousness, economic and political con
sciousness, Catholic and Protestant forms of religious consciousness,
revolutionary consciousness, moral consciousness, a supra-moral type of
consciousness ("Conscience"), and an ultimate stage of consciousness
which functions as a kind of "set of all sets" with regard to the other
stages-i.e., "Absolute Knowledge." But perhaps I may be allowed to
point out, to paraphrase Hegel in his Preface to the Phenomenology, that
titles and introductions to philosophical works will be useless and even
misleading, unless one immerses himself in the content which they briefly
allude to and anticipate.
Erhard Lange in Hegel und Wir calls the Phenomenology "an immortal
work. " I agree with this not so much because of its extraordinary range
PREFACE Xl
of content or the genius of its insights, but simply because it is a great ex
ample in philosophy of serious, sustained and powerful creative
thought-that sine qua non of philosophy which is less common than one
would expect, but welcome in any form, school or style of philosophiz
ing, and in Hegel's philosophical work shines forth in spite of (or per
haps even because of) those incredible successive and cyclical and in
terwoven concatenations of triads for which he is noted.
I am very grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for
their 1977-78 grant which enabled me to complete most of this commen
tary; and also to Louise Henderson, Tom Michaud and Ken Pirsig for
their expert help in proofreading its semi-final versions.
Conventions
B Hegel, C.W.F., Phclnomenologie des Geistes, Bonsiepen, Hsgb.,
Hamburg, 1980.
B Hegel, C.W.F., Phenomenology of Mind, Baillie tr., London, 1961.
M Hegel, C.W.F., The Phenomenology of Spirit, Miller tr., Oxford,
1977.
H Hegel, C. W. F., Phiinomenologie des Geistes, Hoffmeister Hsgb.,
Hamburg, 1948.
K Kainz, H.P., Hegel's Phenomenology, Part I: Analysis and Commentary,
Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1976.
For other works, abbreviated forms of longer titles will be used. Com
plete titles are given in the Bibliography.
xu