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R Srivatsan

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Dec 18, 2023, 6:08:15 AM12/18/23

to Anveshi

796. Hegel reiterates: The concept gains its (next step to) fulfilment in two ways:

On the one hand, it does so in religion and this is through the community becoming sure of itself (as having recollected Christ), but here, the absolute is seen as content (i.e., as an objective form, God, Christ) of consciousness (in other words, it is a representation).

On the other hand, as acting spirit. This is the acting conscientious soul which emerges again from the passive ivory tower of the beautiful soul. it contains self-certain spirit as it acts in opposition to community ethical demands, thus becoming absolute Spirit. In acting, this facet of spirit abandons its immortality (eternal essence as fixed community ethics) and acts in the here and now. This division from the eternal essence emerges from the purity (or self-driven autonomy) of the concept, and this is absolute abstraction or negativity (I am not this, which I seem to be to others and to me; but am becoming something different as I withdraw, I am also thinking about what is right in what I have been and absorbing it). The conscientious soul embodies two things -- the abstract knowledge of what must be done, as would God, and also the concrete knowledge of what is required in the situation, as would man. This withdrawal of the concept, or the movement of consciousness from an outward focus to an inward focus, is the emergence of pure knowledge (this withdrawal is nothing but shifting the focus on how one thinks and does), in other words the emergence of the essence or truth behind the phenomenon in that consciousness. All this thus far occurs without action. However, this withdrawal is in itself an action, and has an outcome: in withdrawing into a being-for-itself, this form of Being-there, i.e., the conscientious actor, is evil. But in so far as, being in opposition, it remains part of the whole it is also good. In other words, the antithesis or opposition arises from and belongs to the whole, spirit, community.

Here're a few lines that are extremely difficult to understand because there is no indication of "what at first happens" (first line in quote) -- I've been struggling with it for a week now:

quote

Now, what at first happens in itself is at the same time for consciousness, and is likewise itself duplicated: it is both for consciousness and also its Being-for-itself or its own doing. The same thing that is already posited in itself now therefore repeats itself as consciousness’s knowledge of it and as conscious doing. Each party abandons for the other the independence of the determinacy in which it enters the lists against it. This abandonment is the same renunciation of the one-sidedness of the concept that in itself constituted the beginning; but it is now its own renunciation, just as the concept which it renounces is its own concept.

end quote (Inwood 315)

What is it that happened "in itself" that Hegel speaks of here? I think here he means the process by which in Revealed Religion, Christ leaves the abstract God, joins the community and acts as one of the community. This is in the mode of representation. This occurrence, which first occurred without full comprehension, as a representation, now occurs for consciousness as its own doing. In other words, the action of the conscientious (ex-beautiful) soul is an act of rejoining the community whereby it relinquishes its absolute isolation. So what was understood in the mode of representation (in the pattern of consciousness of Revealed Religion) is now comprehended as a logical action of the self that recognizes itself in the absolute otherness (once evil) of the community. Both community and individual abandon the litany of complaints each has against the other. Now this renunciation is conscious on both sides and the forgiveness is fully comprehended.