Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Attempted paraphrase of Phenomenology of Spirit, A.I. "Sense-Certainty"
The deficiency of sense-certainty is not the lack of a warrant for following it through to a thing-in-itself, but its incapacity to fix certainty on any “this”—neither the “this” which it claims to sense nor the “this” which it is as absolute source of sensation. It cannot even refer to what it supposes itself to have as certain—since in the moment of grasping it, its “this” disappears—and the “this” which would be left over by negating the “here and now” is not immediate, which is to say it is an abstraction from anything which could be the certain object of sense. The negation of the abstract universal does not, however, simply sweep the last shred of certainty away into a Kritik-al trashcan, but turns universality back over to the world of the senses. “This” insofar as it can have a referent refers to a universal “here-now” which, infinite in itself, comprises many finite “here-nows.” The universal “this” encompasses the “thises” which have proven unreal. It is the thing in its thinghood—a mediated immediacy.
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Stay tuned for an attempted paraphrase of my paraphrase
ReplyDelete"The universal “this” encompasses the “thises” which have proven unreal. It is the thing in its thinghood—a mediated immediacy."
ReplyDeleteBut if the universal "this" relates to its finite instantiations as the species does to its individuals, if in other words, the NUMERICAL individuation of each finite this is itself comprehended without being accounted for by the universal, then we have not advance one step beyond the abstract universal that Hegel disparages --the universal that is, e.g., at work in the traditional principle of identity, A=A. How, then, would you say that the universal "this" with which you end your post has actually surmounted this empty abstractness, this "abstraction from anything which could be the certain object of sense"? After all, the "here" and the "now", when abstracted from their immediate instantiations, have been deemed by the likes of Aristotle not to have become the concretion of a mediated immediacy, but, quite simply, καταγορίαι.
Perception does not latch onto the universal "this" which is at first the essential moment of sense-certainty. It collects instances of that universal "this" as belonging to a thing. But if this thing is just as much a universal as that blank, all-encompassing night in which all cows are black, is it not just as much an empty abstraction? Each particular "this" which belongs to the thing as a universal "this" seems to show up in perception as nothing more than an instance of being-this-thing. But I said that the deficiency of sense-certainty was precisely its failure to reach what it thought to sense, except as an undifferentiated instance of a universal--indeed even this minimal way of reaching the particular belies itself, since it finds in the particular nothing to distinguish it from the others which are just as much what it is; but without such a distinction nothing can be singled out, and there is nothing to be done with what has no singularity. Sense-certainty contradicts itself by robbing certainty of sense, leaving it nothing to be certain about. Well, then, how is it any different to distinguish a particular "this" as an instance of being-this-thing?
ReplyDeleteI point out a thing, with a gesture that encompasses a manifold of "thises" even as it allows no one of them to be the "this" which is pointed out--it would be impossible even to do so. I cannot point something out by indicating first each particular which could be pointed out as an instance of being-the-thing-pointed-out. Nor can I give a rule which would allow you to discern whether any given particular would qualify for such an index. Pointing out is the discovery and display of the non-existence of any bare particulars which could be indexed as instances of the abstract "this," and subsequently totalized into a thing.
The result of this gesture is indeed no different from the abstract universal, except for its being a result. Bare being-this was supposed to belong to each particular already, whether or not sense-certainty takes it up--the particular being the essential and the sense-certainty the inessential. But being-this-thing is achieved through a gesture.
The universality which the gesture achieves can itself be subjected to dialectical exposure. However, this susceptibility is not identical with the deficiency of sense-certainty, not because it is formally different, but only because it has been arrived at.
Hegel, PG tr. Miller, 63-4:
"The 'Now', and pointing out the 'Now', are thus so constituted that neither the one nor the other is something immediate and simple, but a movement which contains various moments. A This is posited; but it is rather an other that is posited, or the This is superseded: and this otherness, or the setting-aside of the first, is itself in turn set aside, and so has returned into the first. However, this first, thus reflected into itself, is not exactly the same as it was to begin with, viz. something immediate; on the contrary, it is something that is reflected into itself, or a simple entity which, in its otherness, remains what it is: a Now which is an absolute plurality of Nows. And this is the true, the genuine Now, the Now as a simple day which contains within it many Nows--hours. A Now of this sort, an hour, similarly is many minutes, and this Now is likewise many Nows, and so on. The pointing-out of the Now is thus itself the movement which expresses what the Now is in truth, viz. a result, or a plurality of Nows all taken together; and the pointing-out is the experience of learning that Now is a universal.
Thanks! I really enjoyed your thorough explanation, Amos. Its been a while since I have read the PG (5 years to be exact), so I really appreciate the chance to become reacquainted...
ReplyDeleteHere is my main question questions:
I am somewhat unclear as to how you are claiming that the passage from PG can parallel or support your own presentation. My confusion, no doubt, is based upon my reading of the PG quote above. Your own presentation, if I have understood it, regards the primary datum of a "this", that is, a "here-now", but Hegel's quote is interested precisely in a "this" only insofar as it is a "now" --as the following sentence seems to make clear: "A 'This' is posited; but it is rather an other that is posited, or the 'This' is superseded". I read the 'or' of that last clause as saying as much as "in other words". The reason why this is, to my mind, significant, is because it is only through a double negation (one that is, indeed essentially temporal) that Hegel gets his "Now that is universal." But the universal of which he is speaking does not differ from the traditional concept of a universal merely by being understood as a result, or in other words, we cannot say of it that it lacks any other difference in the manner that you claim of the result of your own gesture when you say: The result of this gesture is indeed no different from the abstract universal, except for its being a result." To put it differently, is it not clear that Hegel's universal is concrete? Wherein do you think it its concrescence is attained and where is this same concrescence in your own "gesture"? It seems to me that Hegel's temporal universal specifically addresses the problem i was initially asking about: it can ACCOUNT FOR the NUMERICAL individuation, instead of only extensively comprehending it as a species does its individuals. What you present is something in between: it is at once a RESULT and at the same time, seems to remain abstract, since it does not address the negativity of individuation.
I meant to provide further commentary relating the passage to my overall reading, and then also analyzing the subsequent passage regarding the "this" as "here." But I ran out of time and stupidly left the passage up without comment. I hope to get back to this very soon, and I'll try again to answer your question. To anticipate, I think my answer will be just that I don't think the universal as attained in perception is yet concrete--since the problem of numerical individuation reappears in the dialectic of perception and deception.
ReplyDeleteI will certainly agree with you on that...however it is, as it were "on the way toward concrescence" in a manner in which, as far as I can tell at this stage of the discussion, your gesture is not...
ReplyDelete