In the ‘Consciousness’ section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, consciousness
makes a similar perspective of the world as a naïve empiricist (John Locke and
George Berkeley comes to mind) who believes that the primary way of obtaining
knowledge is through sensory experience rather than the notion that the mind is
born with ideas and possesses the ability to access knowledge innately. Hegel,
writing two centuries after the rise of British empiricism, leads the
consciousness and all of its stubborn habits through a dialectic path that
explores and expounds how and why sensuousness and other immediate forms of
knowledge contain inherent conflicts that bring trouble to consciousness’s
values and truths.
Hegel’s goal is to eventually bring consciousness to recognize
that external objects from consciousness do not contain an essence to
themselves that leads consciousness to understanding. We currently finished the
transition from sense-certainty to perception by recognizing that sense
certainty contains the two dilemmas of 1) explanation without using universals,
as well as 2) the necessity of mediation for consciousness. Perception arises
from these two conflicts after recognizing the necessity of universality
amongst sense-certainty and the objects sense certainty was so certain of.
We can notice the transition with Hegel’s choice of altering
the “this” into “the thing with many
properties” (Paragraph 112). Yet due to this correction, consciousness
brings upon itself the question of how so many properties are linked into one
object. Hegel provides with two possibilities of how a thing may contain the
properties, but due to their contrasting nature, this brings another conflict.
It is in the search to find a solution to the conundrums that directs the
phenomenologists for the rest of the chapter, yet perception is left in the
dust so to speak, for it is unable to posit one of the sensual models as the
truth of objects. These pursuits are futile, and once again, consciousness is
led into despair. Consciousness is then forced to go past the empirical sensual universals and pursue something
beyond the exterior world. This is where the powers of force and metaphysics
come to save consciousness and finally achieve what Hegel calls, understanding.
What I’m curious to know is what would an empiricist say in
response to the Hegelian stance on consciousness besides the obvious prattling
and winging? We can look back on Hegel’s work make an argument based on
physical laws (the concept behind force vs. quantum physics), but I don’t
believe that this will bring about anything substantial besides a quick
explication of error. If anyone has a suggestion it would be more than helpful.
I haven't read much empirical philosophy, so I know very little about their theories let alone how they would respond to Hegel's non-empirical method. Considering that they "regard experience as the only true source of knowledge" (OED), and therefore base this upon observation and experiment, it would seem that they would reject Hegel's assertion. That is, that we can attain the truth of an object via Force and Understanding; in other words, we interpret and understand the world through the universal that is not sensuous. Presumably, then, the empiricist would have a problem with this departure from 'immediate' sensual observation, asserting that this knowledge is not concrete and therefore fails to capture the truth.
ReplyDeleteThere is much evidence, however, to show that Hegel's view would be backed up fervently by other philosophers. Descartes, for example, warns against sense perception as a means of attaining indubitable knowledge by pointing out the way in which apparently incontrovertible truths (such as 1+1=2) are undermined by the possibility of a deceiving god. This obviously renders uncertain other more immediate sense perceptions, such as the belief that I am typing this blog post (for I could be dreaming it).
Additionally, the Existentialists pointed out that the raw present-at-hand experience of the world, that is, experiencing a thing as discrete and made up merely of its properties and disconnected from everything else, is impossible. This is because our encounter with the world involves a degree of subjectivity, in other words we experience an object as intricately related to other objects. This view, then, also undermined the empirical assertion that objects can be known objectively.