806-807

[R Srivatsan]

806.  Science, as the progression of Logical thinking has within itself the "necessity of estranging itself from the form of the pure concept"(320) -- in other words, Logic is dialectical -- it moves through externalization of thought into reality.  It is the becoming actual of spirit from the ideality of essence.  Thus, Science contains within it the drive to become conscious (not merely self-conscious as in thought and ideation, but conscious of a reality out there). 

Because the self-knowing spirit, or spirit in its absolute final pattern, fully grasps its own conceptualization (its structure and telos), is fully self-identical, it sees what it is not according to the beginning with which we began this investigation into the science of the experience of consciousness -- it becomes a sensory consciousness.  This release -- by which the non-self acquires its independence from the ideational self, is the assurance that knowing has in its birth in a process that is not conscious thought.

807.  Looked at from the side of the (human) self this is the estrangement of spirit which is expressed in terms of the human self's (I that is a We)'s self-certainty.  But this way of looking at it does not give adequate recognition to its true freedom.  Knowledge is not only aware of what it is, but also its negative -- what its limit is.  Here Hegel makes a subtle switch of perspective without which the paragraph is incomprehensible:  He shifts from the perspective of the human spirit, to spirit as it exists in substance, Nature, as a barely self-conscious form.  

To know the limit is to sacrifice oneself, and Nature precisely knows when it should do so.  This is when  Nature dirempts into an emergent self-consciousness, which experiences time within itself (thus outside the scope of Nature which remains behind) and which experiences space as an aspect of Nature (which is within Nature's substantive form).  What happens in the opposition to the self's mediated, thoughtful, reflective becoming is substance's living, immediate, unthought becoming.

Thus Nature in actuality is nothing but this eternal estrangement of what it is structured as, and a permanent movement that establishes the Subject (as dirempted from itself).

This paragraph and the previous one establishes the limits of the Phenomenology with respect to substantive (undeveloped) objectivity -- sense certainty and Nature.  The paragraph 805 established the limits with respect to the Science of Logic.

The upcoming last paragraph 808 looks at its limit with History as the movement of Spirit.

Srivats

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R Srivatsan
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There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning – devotion to individuals, to groups or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work … in old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves. One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion. - Simone de Beauvoir