805 - 1

[R Srivatsan]

805.  When absolute knowing is reached, spirit has finished shaping itself.  This is because with absolute knowing, it is self-knowing, and the burden of the subject object divide that plagues consciousness is overcome.  Thus, spirit has now acquired being-there or Dasein, or actuality, which is the concept in existence.  The content of this spirit is, since it is free, the "self-estranging self", i.e., the movement of being-for-itself, or negation in general.  It is what leads to the I = I, i.e., the "immediate unity of self-knowledge".

The self-estrangement (see last para above) here when seen as a content, is its necessity -- being-for-itself is a movement -- away from the necessity of actuality as it presents itself.  The diverse content of actuality occurs in its relation to the self-withdrawing I, and is not in-itself there.  And the dynamism of the content, its restlessness, is its negativity -- becoming something else, something more that it started out with.  Thus, this diversity in relation to the self-withdrawing I is also the Self -- it is not passive.  And this selfish form of objectivity, where actuality or Dasein is immediately a thought contains what we call the concept -- the becoming of reality into what it strives to be.

"So, having won the concept,  spirit unfolds the Being-there and the movement in this aether of its life, is science." (Inwood 319)

At this point, the Phenomenology of Spirit transitions into the Science of Logic.  

In paragraph 26 of the PhS preface here, Hegel uses the word 'aether' as follows:  "Pure self-cognition in absolute otherness, this aether as such, is the ground and terrain of science; it is knowledge in its universality". (Inwood 13)

Hegel is using the word aether not the Aristotelian sense of the five elements (Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Aether).   Rather he is using it in the Newtonian sense of a conceptual scaffolding that makes visual light and its laws rationally explicable (this Newtonian theory has now been rendered obsolete by the concept of electromagnetic waves).   For Hegel, Spirit is the aether of the concept, i.e., of human life of the I as the We.  Spirit is what makes the phenomena of social actuality explicable.

 So the sentence quoted from paragraph 805 above (Inwood 319) means:  Once spirit has comprehended the concept (of itself) it is able to comprehend and unfold actuality (existing reality) and this self-conscious unfolding of reality is what Hegel would call science.  And this scientific unfolding of reality would be a superior (the most superior) mode of living together, beyond a religion that is based on faith.

To be continued...

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