Logic ^Desire AN INTRODUCTION T O HEGEL'S
Phenomenology of Spirit
PETER
KALKAVAGE
r^.
THE
LOGIC OF
DESIRE An Int...
64 downloads
713 Views
37MB Size
Report
This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form
Logic ^Desire AN INTRODUCTION T O HEGEL'S
Phenomenology of Spirit
PETER
KALKAVAGE
r^.
THE
LOGIC OF
DESIRE An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit PETER KALKAVAGE
PAUL DRY BOOKS Philadelphia
2007
First Paul Dry Books Edition, 2007 Paul D r y Books, Inc. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania www.pauldrybooks.com Copyright © 2007 Peter Kalkavage A l l rights reserved Text type: M i n i o n Display type: Ellington Designed and composed by P. M . Gordon Associates The cover image shows Hector fighting Achilles. From a red-figured volute-krater attributed to the Berlin Painter, Greece, circa 500-480 B.C. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 135798642 Printed i n the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kalkavage, Peter. The logic of desire : an introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit / Peter Kalkavage. — 1st Paul Dry books ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58988-037-5 (alk. paper) 1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Phänomenologie des Geistes. 2. Spirit. 3. Consciousness. 4. Truth. I. Title. B2929.K29 2007 193—dc22 2007041089
FOR STANLEY ROSEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I W I S H TO T H A N K M Y F O R M E R T E A C H E R , S T A N L E Y R O S E N , TO W H O M
this book is gratefully dedicated, for inspiring my life-long interest i n Hegel. His lectures on the Science of Logic at Penn State University continue to play an important role in my philosophic efforts. I am also indebted to Joseph Flay, another of my teachers at Penn State, with w h o m I first studied the Phenomenology of Spirit. This introduction to the Phenomenology began with a lecture entitled "Hegel's Logic of Desire," which I delivered at St. Johns College i n Annapolis in the spring of 1996. The lecture was published i n the St John's Review, and was the product of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant I received through St. John's. I am grateful to the College for awarding me this grant, and for giving me release time from teaching i n order to study Hegel and write the lecture. Friends and colleagues were a constant source of encouragement and wise counsel. Eva Brann, who supported my project from the start, read drafts of all my chapters and made many valuable suggestions regarding form and content. M y friend and former philosophy teacher, Donald L i n denmuth, was very helpful i n the final stages of the book's composition. Erica Freeman, my former student, read drafts of the chapters on Reason and offered astute comments and suggestions based on her own recent study of the Phenomenology During the writing of this book, I had many conversations about Hegel with colleagues and students. Their enthusiasm for my project was a consolation and a joy. I owe a special debt of thanks to my friend and colleague, Eric Salem, who served as editor. His attention to detail, knowledge of the history of philosophy, insight into Hegel, sound judgment, wit, and personal encouragement are very much a part of this book. More than an editor, he was a co-worker and midwife. I am also grateful to my publisher, Paul Dry, who read my chapters with great interest and imagination, posed tough questions, and helped me get a sense of the whole. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Christine, who first encouraged me to write this book. She has been my strong and patient ally throughout the whole journey of my Hegel consciousness. She too read drafts of chapters and offered many insightful suggestions. I could not have completed this daunting project without her support, admiration for Hegel, and unwavering belief i n the worth of what I was trying to do.
CONTENTS A N ITINERARY TO T H E J O U R N E Y OF CONSCIOUSNESS
PROLOGUE The Ladder and the Labyrinth
xi
Preparing the Journey 1
A World of Knowing
2
What Is Experience?
1 (HEGEL'S INTRODUCTION)
11
Consciousness 3
O f Mere Being
4
The Crisis of Thinghood
5
The Dynamics of Self-Expression
6
Principles of M o t i o n and the M o t i o n of Principles
29
(SENSE-CERTAINTY)
(PERCEPTION)
40
(UNDERSTANDING)
(UNDERSTANDING, CONTINUED)
55
70
SelfConsciousness 7
O n Life and Desire
8
The Violent Self: In Quest of Recognition
9
Freedom as Thinking
10
91 109
126
Infinite Yearning and the Rift i n M a n
137
Reason 11
Idealism
157
12
Adventures of a Rational Observer
13
The Romance of Reason
14
Rational Animals and the Birth of Spirit
166
j 86 207
Spirit 15
Ethical Life: Laws i n Conflict
235
16
Interlude
17
Culture as Alienation
18
From Pure Insight to Pure Terror:
260 268
The Darkness of the Enlightenment
292
19
Pure Willing and the M o r a l World-View 315
20
Conscience and Reconciliation: Hegel's Divine Comedy
Religion 21
The Depiction of G o d 361
22
The Greek Phase
23
Christianity, the Figure of Science
374 396
Absolute Knowing 24
Speculative G o o d Friday: The Top of Hegel's Ladder 423 EPILOGUE
452
A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY NOTES
463
INDEX
523
459
Prologue
The Ladder and the Labyrinth
THERE
IS M U C H
TO C O M M E N D T H ESTUDY OF H E G E L : HIS A T T E N -
tiveness to the deepest, most fundamental questions of philosophy, his uncompromising pursuit of truth, his amazing gift for characterization and critique, his appreciation for the grand sweep of things and the large view, his profound admiration for all that is heroic, especially for the ancient Greeks, those heroes of thought i n whom the philosophic spirit first dawned, his penetrating gaze into modernity i n all its forms, his enormous breadth of interests, and his audacious claim to have captured absolute knowing i n a thoroughly rational account. There is no genuine philosophic education that does not include more than passing acquaintance with this modern giant, who absorbed all the worlds of spiritual vitality that came before h i m and tried to organize them into a coherent whole. The Phenomenology of Spirit, the great philosophic epic of modernity, appeared i n 1807. Hegel finished writing it (minus the Preface) on October 14, 1806. O n that day, Napoleon, the hero of the Revolution, defeated the Prussian army and marched into Jena, where Hegel was living at the time. Conceived as the prelude to philosophic Science, the Phenomenology offers the reader what Hegel calls a ladder to the absolute [ 2 6 ] / But oh, how difficult it is to climb this ladder! Hegel's epic often seems more labyrinth than ladder. In the words of one commentator, "no book is less suited to a beginner." The Minotaur of these regions, the Demon of Difficulty, haunts every chamber. The monstrous difficulty of Hegel is both legend and cliché. It is so great and persistent, so much a part of how Hegel thinks and speaks, that we risk losing our way at every turn. A d d to this that 1
* T h e numbers in brackets refer to paragraphs in A . V. Miller's edition of the Phenomenology. I have occasionally adjusted Miller's translation to a more faithful rendering of Hegel's German.
r
\ desire and, 103; Ethics,
itself, 31, 32-34; insight and, 299; lan-
103,130, 463n. 6,464n. 18,476n. 6,
guage and, 33,39; mediated (see per-
500n. 1, 509n. 47; negation and, 465n. 8;
ception); N o w of, 31, 32-33, 34, 35-37;
on picture-thinking, 500n. 1,50In. 20;
object and, 22, 32-34; religious, 428;
on spirit, 493n. 4 spirit (Geist), xiii, 1, 2,4,9, 106-107, 261,
spiritual, 368-370 sensibility, 172-173,174
262,263; definition of, 9,106-107,
sex, 99,100,190-195, 485n. 23
404-405; emergence of, 6; first stage of
Sextus Empiricus, 133,478n. 10 Shakespeare, W i l l i a m : Hamlet, 388; Henry
ethicality [Sittlichkeit]); history of, 441¬
(ethicality), 230-232,235-259 (see also
IV, 114; Macbeth, 82, 105, 183, 388,
445,447-449; inner essence of, 242;
473n 35
nature and, 447; reason and, 165, 235;
shapes (Gestalten), 2-3, 6, 7-8, 115, 447-448, 450-451; appearance of, 4 6 4 , 7; vs. consciousness, 17, 21-22, 23-24; contingency of, 6-7; culminating, 16-17; discontinuity and, 10; negation of, 16-17; undercutting of, 7-8 n
second stage of (culture), 235-236 (see also culture [Bildung]); self-alienation of, 446, 448; self-consciousness of (see art-religion; Christianity; naturerelation; religion); splitting of, 139-140; third stage of (morality), 236, 315-333
535
536
r - k Index spirit {Geist) (continued)
teleology, 169-170
(see also morality); transcendence and, 5;
themis, 231
world of knowing of, 6
Thersitism, 508n. 32
Spirit of Christianity, The (Hegel), 473n. 25
thing, 22,40,41,42-45, 467-468n. 3; defini-
spiritedness, 2,117
tion of, 22; ethical, 241; German words
splitting (Entzweiung), 73,238, 285; action,
for, 164-165,466n. 2; logical moments
250; culture, 285; force, 66-68, 73,113;
of, 43-44,46-47; manyness of, 41, 45,
insight, 305-306; life, 99; self-conscious-
46-48; vs. the matter itself, 218; mat-
ness, 97-98; spirit, 139-140; unhappy
ters of, 44,48; oneness of, 41,45,46,49;
consciousness, 139-140,141-142, 285
otherness of, 44,49-52; properties of, 40,
state power, 275-278,282-284; feudal stage
42,45,46-47; reason and, 161,164-165,
of, 280; judgment and, 278-281; monar-
167-179; self-identity of, 43-44; self-
chical, 280, 282-284
related, 43; skull as, 183-184; slave as,
Stations of the Cross, 3
119-120,127-128; thing-in-itself, 5,14,
statues, 372-373,377-380, 51 Inn. 7,28, 29
83,409; understanding and, 61; unhappy
Steffens, Heinrich, 485n. 22
consciousness and, 148; vis-à-vis rela-
Stevens, Wallace: " O f Mere Being," 466n. 3; "Sunday Morning," 48In. 29 stoic, 125-132,257, 258,401,402-403, 478n. 3,4, 8,495n. 25; vs. believer, 289 subject: absolute, 91,92; perception, 47-48;
tions of, 49-50; words for, 164-165. See also work (Werk)
thinking/thought, 60-61,104; abstract, 323; aspectual, 52-53; circle of, 467n. 15; conceptual, 295, 296; culture and, 276-278,
sense-certainty, 34-35; thinking (see self
288-291; faith, 288-291; force and, 60,
[selves]); truth as, 339; universal, 310
61; freedom and, 127,128; of good and
subject/object, 446-447; action and, 214;
evil, 412; history of, 442-445; laws of,
conscience and, 338-340; consciousness
179-180; method-driven, 13; philo-
and, 19,20, 25; correspondence between,
sophic, 433-434; pure, 145-146, 306,
21; desire and, 103-104; ethicality, 239¬
480n. 21; self-alienation of, 277; self-
240; the matter itself and, 218, 221-223;
differentiated, 161; skeptic and, 132—
natural consciousness and, 12-13; per-
136,145; stoic and, 128-132,145; tool/
ception and, 45-52; relation of, 20; reli-
medium, 13-14,160; understanding and,
gion and, 365-366; self-consciousness
60-61; unhappy consciousness and, 145¬
and, 94-96,105, 308; sense-certainty
146; work and, 123
and, 31-38; spirit and, 441 subjectivity, 35 sublation (Aufhebung), 15-16, 465n. 9; sense-certainty, 36-38, 43 substance, 470n. 21; ethical, 224, 226, 387¬ 388,492nn. 28, 30 suffering, 7, 8,17, 23,159,260, 519n. 49;
This: ethical, 226; of sense-certainty, 22, 31, 32-34, 55 thrownness (Geworfenheit), 411 Tieck, Ludwig, 473n. 20 time, 439-441,467n. 18,471n. 7, 519nn. 43, 44,45,46; Earth as, 99; logic of, 7; schema as, 161; sense-certainty, 32-33,
alienation and, 260-261, 449-450; o f art-
34, 35-37, 439; spirit in, 366; structure
ist, 376-377; ethicality and, 252; of G o d ,
of, 36-37,161
3,4; of spirit, 444 syllogism, 72-74,113-114,47Inn. 2, 3; Christian consciousness, 408,409; com-
Tolstoy, Leo: War and Peace, 351-352, 504505n.19, 508n. 38 tragedy, 376-377, 386-392, 493n. 8,494n.
edy, 393; epic, 383, 385, 393, 512n. 23;
21; action and, 246-253; actor in, 386,
language i n , 282, 283,287; life, 177; rea-
391-392; audience of, 391; Chorus i n ,
son, 162; religion, 428; unhappy con-
386-387,391; deception i n , 389; Fate i n ,
sciousness, 157-158. See also dialectic
389-391, 397; gods i n , 388-390; hero
syncretism, 505n. 26
in, 386, 387, 391; Necessity in, 390-391; state/family opposition i n , 387-388, 389
T talent (natural gift), 202, 203-204, 206, 210, 2 U , 4 9 0 n n . 5,11 tautology, 79, 80, 95, 174
Treviranus, G . R., 483n. 9 Trinity, 143-144, 290, 363, 397, 405,410,438, 513n. 2 Trojan War, 512n. 15 trust, 189, 315
Index truth: absolute, 4; fear of, 60; relative, 14; self-consciousness and, 94; as subject,
vassal, 280-281; vs. client, 285 verbal expression, 63. See also
338-339, 426; as substance, 426; traditional definition of, 21
r-k 5 3 7
language/speech virtue: ancient, 201,205; idealistic, 199-206;
truth-telling, 227,319
nothingness of, 205; secret weapon of,
tyrant, 475n. 20
203 vis viva, 57
u
vitalism, 484n. 14 Voltaire, 289-290, 500n. 44
unconscious, 241, 244 understanding (Verstand), 11-12,42, 52-53, 55-69,465n. 1, 469n. 1; Christianity, 396,
w
406-407; divine, 397; ontological legal-
war, 109, 244, 254-255
ism of, 68-69; vs. reason, 161; religious,
War of Independence, 115-118
428; spiritual, 371-373. See also force
Way of Despair, 7-8,15,24,140
(Kraft)
Way of the World, 199,200-201,202, 204;
unhappiness, 17
vs. idealistic virtue, 204-206; self-interest
unhappy consciousness, 136, 137-153, 258,
and, 222-223
401,478n. 1,479n. 2,479n. 3; alienation
wealth, 275-278, 282-284; judgment and,
and, 270; beautiful soul and, 346-347; changeable-unchangeable aspects of,
278-281; selfhood and, 285-286 will, 502n. 26; general, 276,277, 310,311¬
141, 142,143-144, 145, 148-149,151; vs.
312; individual, 313-314; pure, 313-314.
Christianity, 408; Christianity and, 266,
See also conscience (Gewissen); morality
481n. 33; desire and, 147-150; vs. faith,
Woman, 241, 244-245,254
289; feeling and, 145-147; heart and,
W o r d (das Wort), 409-410
145-147; infinite yearning of, 146-147;
work (Arbeit), 22; vs. desire, 123-124; skeptic
master and, 141; morality and, 322; over-
and, 133; slave and, 122,123-124,127;
view of, 141-144; priest and, 151,152,
unhappy consciousness and, 147-150
157-158; self-surrender i n , 148-149,
work (Werk), 165,212, 213,214; communal
150-153; singularity (this-ness) i n , 143,
(state power), 277; negative, 271-272;
144,145,150; splitting of, 139-140,142;
public nature of, 214-215, 221-223; self-
work and, 147-150
negating nature of, 214-216, 217; suffering as, 376-377
universal, 22, 33; abstract, 202; conditioned, 52; culture and, 276-277, 290; death and,
world: creation of, 411-412; inverted, 58,
243, 312-313; embodied, 167; faith and,
80-84,472n. 19,473nn. 20,22,498n. 9;
290; individual embodiment of, 351;
supersensible, 72, 73-74, 81
inner of things qua inner, 68-69, 70-71,
world-historic individuals, 351, 356, 508n. 36
72, 74; insight and, 290; law of heart and,
world-history, 248,448-449
197; particular transformation into, 31,
world of knowing, 6, 8
35, 36-38; perception and, 42-45, 46-47;
worship: cult, 380, 383, 393
sensed, 43,47, 52; unconditioned, 55, 59, 60,64 (see also force [Kraft]) universal consciousness, 214
Y
utility, 299-300, 306-307, 309-310,429, 443
yearning (Sehnen), 304, 307, 347-348,403
V
z
Valery, Paul, 98, 474n. 8, 506n. 14 value, 498n 17
Zeus, 389-390 Zoroastrianism, 368-370,442
PETER KALKAVAGE received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in philosophy from Penn State University. Since 1977 Kalkavage has taught in the all-required liberal arts program of St. Johns College in Annapolis. In 1993 he received, through St. Johns, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant that allowed him to study HegePs Phenomenology in depth and to produce the lecture "HegePs Logic of Desire." He is also director of the St. John s Chorus, which regularly performs great works of sacred choral music. Together with his colleagues Eva Brann and Eric Salem, he translated Plato's Sophist (1996) and Phaedo (1998) for Focus Press. The trio is currently working on the Statesman. In 2001 Focus brought out his edition of the Timaeus. Kalkavage has published three essays on Dante, his most beloved poet: "Dante and Ulysses: A Reading of Inferno 26," "Peter of the Vine: The Perversion of Faith in Inferno 13," and "Love, Law, and Rhetoric: The Teachings of Francesca in Dante s Inferno." Most recently, Kalkavage, along with Eric Salem, edited The Envisioned Life: Essays in Honor of Eva Brann for Paul Dry Books (2007). He is currently writing a book on music, soul, and being.
w He
U»'t*
M**
N O GENUINE PHILOSOPHIC EDUCATION CAN OMIT A SERIOUS ENCOUNTER WITH THIS HEGEL, THE GIANT OF THE MODERN AGE, WHO ABSORBED ALL THE WORLDS OF SPIRITUAL VITALITY THAT CAME BEFORE HIM AND TRIED TO ORGANIZE THEM INTO S OHERI T WHOLJ
. . ill
Ha e
a J
F * • a
* . It h ^ t i i i b part o f the P/zf
1
4
i i »411. ^ m j t t o + M f l
Pet
J 4 * i t rtir.S
ler enrol h H D AJL. W h v r v
Ph Tl
•"^ t h v , stud>ns o f p h i ]
m 1 I 1 S O
»c o f thr ««iior f i ^ u h " *i N* H«" * - *« i