Thursday, February 16, 2012

Hegel's Spirit Found in Morality

As we finish reading Hegel, I honestly do not have a complete grasp on the Phenomenology, since the book is dense and the style in my opinion is poor. However, that does not take away completely the importance of the subject matter and actual reality of Consciousness. That being said, I believe that knowledge of the truth , as abstract as it may sound, cannot be achieved without the full realization of Consciousness realizing itself in a couple of modes.

First off, correct me if I am mistaken, but Hegel's Consciousness is formed with knowledge. This knowledge is not only of subject but also Consciousness' knowledge of itself. While all of the basic foundations of knowledge includes, which includes sense-certainty and perception, are important to the process of frustrating the mind, the most important factor of knowledge has to reason. Without reason, nothing should make sense. A chair is not a chair if it's most basic essentials cannot be applied to the Forces of our daily life. The chair as a being for others needs its applications. As much as sense-certainty believes that it is sure of it-self, it cannot be called knowledge without reason.

The development of Spirit works in similar ways. In Consciousness, knowledge is heavily relied upon. As if we are speaking of the knowledge of self-consciousness has on Consciousness or the knowledge that Consciousness has of itself, reason plays a heavy role. I do not see Hegel developing the argument that I am about to make, but feel free to respond. I believe that through reasons that are provided through nature and morality are essential to Consciousness. Even though Hegel says that whatever is moral is rational, he does not place on the same spectrum as reason. The way that I feel is that when he talks about morality he would use terms such as moral action or morality as it fulfills duties. But when I speak of morality, I say that morality cannot exist without reason. Though that does not sound like I am provoking anything new, I believe that reason cannot exist without morality. For example, when we are talking about knowledge of object. I believe that morality is a determinant of the object. In the simplest form, I would ask how that object (for me) needs moral awareness and that determines the object. For example, let's say my object is a moral. The way that morality plays a role is that I would wonder how the book would be valuable in education. And since education provides knowledge, it is reasonable. On the other hand, some one can evaluate that book as being immoral, in the sense that the book must have came from paper which comes from trees; therefore, we are ruining the earth. However the perspective is, morality is essential to reasoning and knowledge. Thus, the development of Consciousness would be incomplete without morality being regarded as one of its ultimate determinant.

Tell me what you think. This is just something that I have been thinking of. I am not even sure if I undervalued Hegel's morality of misunderstood him.

2 comments:

  1. You write: "Hegel's Consciousness is formed with knowledge. This knowledge is not only of subject but also Consciousness' knowledge of itself. While all of the basic foundations of knowledge includes, which includes sense-certainty and perception, are important to the process of frustrating the mind, the most important factor of knowledge has to reason." I'm a bit confused as to what you mean in this instance. Would you please elaborate on what you mean in saying that consciousness is formed with knowledge? It seems to me that saying 'knowledge is formed with consciousness' might be more correct...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe what Phong is saying is that knowledge of objects (or even the desire to know objects) frustrates consciousness in such a way that consciousness sees the need to change the way it sees those objects. Consciousness is still the subject forming, but it only is formed because of the knowledge of the object. Does this make any sense?

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.