May Hejiri

November 22, 2010

PHL 296
Hegel and Kant on Contradictions

“The Phenomenology of Spirit” written by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is a

study of the shapes of consciousness. The aim is to find absolute knowledge through the

experience of consciousness. This experience of consciousness explains how new

positions arise out of contradictions in determinate negation. Hegel’s phenomenology

method will be compared to Immanuel Kant’s method of contradiction in his work,

“Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics.” In this essay, I will begin by giving an

account of Hegel’s method of phenomenology and explaining it through the stages of

Stoicism, Skepticism and Unhappy Consciousness. Then I will follow it with Kant’s

method of contradiction and his way of doing philosophy.

Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit is a descriptive study of consciousness. The

method of phenomenology project is to observe consciousness. It is a journey and you

arrive at a destination. At the end you learn something from it. The nature of the journey

is consciousness trying to know the nature of the object we are experiencing; the truth.

Hegel is striving after this absolute Truth. First, we come up with a standard of truth, an

expectation. Then consciousness tests this standard against the world itself to see if this is

the way we see reality. But when consciousness does a mistake it alters its conception of

the nature of reality. It becomes a journey of despair because we get disappointed. But

consciousness does not give up and learns that expectations must be revised.

The revision is called “Negation.” This is like saying no to your expectations. Our

consciousness more specifically negates our failed standards with “Determinate

negation.” According to Hegel, “as a determinate negation, a new form has thereby
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immediately arisen, and in the negation the transition is made through which the progress

through the complete series of forms comes about of itself” (Section 79, page 51). This

tells our consciousness specifically where our standard has failed. So consciousness

revises and incorporates and integrates the negation. Thus, despair gives rise to learning.

However, we do not get to see the moment of revision. We think it’s just one conception

of reality that takes over. For example, I used to think this way but now I think that way.

Consciousness can’t see that one standard of truth is selected, tested and revised and then

gives a new standard. However, one shape of consciousness will necessarily give rise to

another by virtue of determinate negation. But we do see is the necessity that

consciousness cannot see; this is our contribution.

Self-consciousness goes through the stages of Stoicism, Skepticism and Unhappy

Consciousness. 'Freedom of self-consciousness', examines the development of the slave's

rediscovery of himself. This development goes through Stoicism, Skepticism, and

unhappy consciousness. Stoicism according to Hegel is, “For the essence of that freedom

is at first only thinking in general, the form as such [of thought], which has turned away

from the independence of things and returned into itself” (Sec 200, pg. 122). Stoicism

identifies with freedom of thought. The slave doesn’t live in their work. They live in their

own private life and enjoy it. This attitude becomes passive indifference: the slave is

indifferent to his work. However, “This thinking consciousness as determined in the form

of abstract freedom is thus only the incomplete negation of otherness. Withdrawn from

existence only into itself, it has not there achieved its consummation as absolute negation

of that existence” (Sec 201, pg. 122). Thus, the slave holds his self back; it’s just

something he does at work. He doesn’t care about what he does. He seeks peace from
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November 22, 2010
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within and withdraws from life. However, this means that the slave is then confronted

with the world of alienation. A person must be in what he does but the world doesn’t

matter to the stoic. He doesn’t seem to care about alienation and makes everything

vanish.

The problem with this sense of freedom is that “Consciousness does indeed

destroy the content as alien immediacy when it thinks it; but the Notion is a determinate

Notion, and this determinateness of the Notion is the alien element which it has within

it… The True and the Good, wisdom and virtue, the general terms beyond which

Stoicism cannot get, are therefore in a general way no doubt uplifting, but since they

cannot in fact produce any expansion of the content, the soon become tedious” (Section

200, page 122). The determinate negation points out that stoic still can’t enjoy his

freedom because he needs recognition to be satisfied. His form of freedom doesn’t solve

alienation or reality. It is mental freedom only through withdrawal. There is no living

breathing freedom.

Skepticism for Hegel is “the wholly unessential and non-independent character of

this ‘other’ becomes explicit for consciousness; the [abstract] thought becomes the

concrete thinking which annihilates the being of the world in all its manifold

determinateness, and the negativity of free self-consciousness comes to know itself in the

many and varies forms of life as a real negativity” (Section 202, pg. 123). The skeptic

won’t be inwardly indifferent like the stoic. The skeptic will deal with it by destroying it.

This shape of consciousness wants to destroy everything. It will destroy alienation and

everything that causes it. The skeptic does not stay within. But the determinate negation

shows that by destroying everything, the skeptic is left with nothing. The problem of
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November 22, 2010
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skepticism is that annihilation cannot be annihilated. Everything can be destroyed except

the statement everything can be destroyed. This ends in a contradiction. Thus, everything

can be annihilated except my act of annihilation. Skepticism experiences itself as a

contradiction. Thus, the skeptic has a sense of contradictory freedom.

Unhappy consciousness is defined by “the changeable and the unchanging.” What

it means to be free is to be caught up in the contradiction. We confront this contradiction

that everything can change. We are put together such that we are unhappy. This is what it

is to be human. To solve this, is to get rid of me. We want oness and unification of the

same and the changing. Our alien reality must be transformed uniting the changing and

the unchanging. The double consciousness of skepticism becomes unhappy

consciousness. Hegel’s philosophical project here is pushed through stoicism, skepticism

and finally to unhappy consciousness.

In the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Kant warns us why we should

not claim to have knowledge of things that we cannot experience by giving us four

antinomies. The third antinomy is the one in which will be imperative to know Kant’s

approach to philosophical inquiry. Each antinomy is carried out by pure reason, but is

also contradicted by pure reason. Pure reason to Kant goes beyond the phenomenal

realm, and extends to the numenal realm. The first antinomy’s thesis is that “The world

has, as to time and space, a beginning (limit). The antithesis is, “the world is, as to time

and space, infinite” (Section 50, IV 339). This means, the world has a beginning in time

and an ending in space. However, this claim cannot hold because time and space cannot

be experienced separately from experience. So the limit can only be experienced in the

numenal realm where we do not have access to.

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The second antinomy gives the thesis, “Everything in the world is constituted out

of the simple” and the antithesis, “There is nothing simple, but everything is composite”

(Sec 51, IV 339). This antinomy first claims that our world is simple, for example it is

easily understood that everything we find in our world is made up of atoms. However,

pure reason contradicts this because our world has complicated compositions. For

example, some molecules are made up of a complicated formation of atoms.

The third antinomy’s thesis is that “There are in the world causes through

freedom” and the antithesis that “There is no freedom, but all is nature” (Sec 51, IV 339).

This means, we may believe we have freedom in the choice of what food to eat and what

clothes to wear, however, we are physiologically forced to eat and cover up when the

weather is cold. Or else, we cannot survive as humans. Our biological nature does not

allow us to be free.

The fourth antinomy’s thesis holds that, “In the series of world-causes there is

some necessary being” and the antithesis, “There is nothing necessary in the world, but in

this series all is contingent” (Sec 51, IV 339). This means that there must be a necessary

uncaused being, such as us humans acting freely, however, pure reason argues that there

does not have to be an uncaused being.

The first two antinomies are false for Kant because they deal with objects

unconditioned to space and time which are always finite. For example I cannot say that

our world is both finite and infinite. Moreover, they consider the appearance of objects to

be the thing in itself, which is not true. The third and fourth antinomies are possible

because they are not necessarily based on time and space and both the thesis and

antithesis of both antinomies can be true.

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The third antinomy is most imperative to understand Kant’s approach to philosophical

inquiry. Pure reason rescues freedom without harming “natural necessity”. The third

antinomy claims that there are two different types of causality. The first type is natural

causes governed either by the law of nature or by uncaused causes from man acting up

freely. The second type of causality is the causal laws of nature themselves which govern

the world and man’s actions. Pure reason can show that man is free and not free in the

same time. But Kant claims that the actions of a person as appearances are bound to the

necessity of nature. The contradiction of the third antinomy is resolved only if natural

necessity of things is taken as a mere appearances. Freedom on the other hand is given to

the things in themselves.

We are mistaken to see the causal necessity and freedom as separate. Rather they

go hand in hand. Laws of nature are possible only in space and time, and thus apply to

appearances. Freedom of man however, exists outside the phenomenal realm and does

not apply to appearances. More specifically, freedom applies to the things in themselves

and never bound to space and time or even causal influences. And so freedom is

expressed through maxims while still following laws of nature that govern the

phenomenal realm of appearances. For example, I get hungry and I must eat to live as a

law of nature. However, as a human I am free to choose whatever I want to eat to fulfill

this law of nature.

In conclusion we find that Kant introduces a new way of doing philosophy. Kant

is concerned with the inquiry into the world of appearances rather than reality. The only

way we can know is through a priori principles. Kant rejects skepticism and is focused on

arguing against skepticism. Hegel on the other hand, believes in determinate negation
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where the philosopher will first create a standard, test it and then if it does not measure up

to reality then it is negated with determinant negation. This was shown through the

experience of consciousness from Stoicism, Skepticism and Unhappy Consciousness.