In Hegel's theory of knowledge, there is an epistemological ascent in three stages. The point of departure is sensuous consciousness, the summit is reason, and understanding lies along the route between them. The initial position is the most primitive encounter between mind and the world, predating any form of reflection. The mind does not experience itself as divided from the world, and is incapable of distinguishing things and aspects in what lies before it. The elements of the object are merged, and the subject is merged with them. Understanding is the sphere of analysis: the subject asserts a distinction between itself and the object, of an absolute kind, and is able to discriminate parts and features of the object. Understanding is a necessary phase in the acquisition of knowledge, but it must be surpassed by reason, which maintains understanding's distinctions, yet also recognizes deeper unities beyond understanding's competence. Reason recaptures the integration understanding suspended, without renouncing the achievements premised on that suspension.
Epistemology is not the only area Hegel trisected in the manner just sketched. While I do not seek endorsement of his procedure in epistemology or in general, I do submit that the rhythm realized in the progress exhibited above sometimes occurs in a person's development. With respect to categorially various items to which a person may be related-his spouse, his family, his country, his job, his role, his body, his desires-it seems possible for him to sustain something like each of the three attitudes we have separated. He may fail in significant ways to distinguish himself and what he is from the other to which he is related; he may possess a strong sense of its otherness, so that it seems alien to him; or he may have that sense, yet find it compatible with close engagement. What is more, it sometimes happens that he occupies the three positions successively, in the order Hegel thought canonical in epistemology and elsewhere.
A domain offering examples of the sequence Hegel favored is that of marriage. In its early stages a person may feel his interests and purposes to be identical with those of his spouse. Both may feel that way, and thus combine their lives to an extent which from outside looks artificial or moronic. But then one or both may revolt against fusion, and become hostile to continued connection. Finally, a new harmony may supervene, not through relapse into complete mutual absorption, real or pretended, but by discovery of a unity which is not antagonistic to the individuality of each.
Referring to this sequence in intimate relations, Hegel wrote in his fragment "On Love" that "the process is: unity, separated opposites, reunion."2 He thought the course of true love always has this structure, but we need not agree when we acknowledge that there is such a structure, and that it deserves attention. The term "dialecticar' will hereafter be applied to processes of the envisaged kind. I shall say that a subject undergoes a dialectical process if it passes from a stage where it is undivided from some object, through a stage where it divides itself from it in a manner which creates disunity, to a stage where distinction persists but unity is restored. I shall label the successive stages "undifferentiated unity," "differentiated disunity," and "differentiated unity."
(Cohen, G.A. (1974), Marx's Dialectic of Labour, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 235-37)
Epistemology is not the only area Hegel trisected in the manner just sketched. While I do not seek endorsement of his procedure in epistemology or in general, I do submit that the rhythm realized in the progress exhibited above sometimes occurs in a person's development. With respect to categorially various items to which a person may be related-his spouse, his family, his country, his job, his role, his body, his desires-it seems possible for him to sustain something like each of the three attitudes we have separated. He may fail in significant ways to distinguish himself and what he is from the other to which he is related; he may possess a strong sense of its otherness, so that it seems alien to him; or he may have that sense, yet find it compatible with close engagement. What is more, it sometimes happens that he occupies the three positions successively, in the order Hegel thought canonical in epistemology and elsewhere.
A domain offering examples of the sequence Hegel favored is that of marriage. In its early stages a person may feel his interests and purposes to be identical with those of his spouse. Both may feel that way, and thus combine their lives to an extent which from outside looks artificial or moronic. But then one or both may revolt against fusion, and become hostile to continued connection. Finally, a new harmony may supervene, not through relapse into complete mutual absorption, real or pretended, but by discovery of a unity which is not antagonistic to the individuality of each.
Referring to this sequence in intimate relations, Hegel wrote in his fragment "On Love" that "the process is: unity, separated opposites, reunion."2 He thought the course of true love always has this structure, but we need not agree when we acknowledge that there is such a structure, and that it deserves attention. The term "dialecticar' will hereafter be applied to processes of the envisaged kind. I shall say that a subject undergoes a dialectical process if it passes from a stage where it is undivided from some object, through a stage where it divides itself from it in a manner which creates disunity, to a stage where distinction persists but unity is restored. I shall label the successive stages "undifferentiated unity," "differentiated disunity," and "differentiated unity."
(Cohen, G.A. (1974), Marx's Dialectic of Labour, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 235-37)
No comments:
Post a Comment